Europe’s richest man hits back at claims his office won’t hire ‘fat’ people

Bernard Arnault, Europe’s richest man, has rejected claims he doesn’t hire “fat” people in a letter ridiculing a newspaper investigation into his business empire.

Journalists from left-leaning newspaper Le Monde made the claim after visiting the Paris headquarters of LVMH, the luxury goods conglomerate that Arnault, 77, founded 40 years ago.

“The women stand up straight, and are mostly young, pretty and slim. You would not come across a single overweight or sloppily dressed employee,” Raphaelle Bacque and Vanessa Schneider, reporters, wrote in their six-part series on the Arnault family.

In a three-page response posted on LVMH’s X account, Arnault said: “I offer my apologies to readers for this failure of bodily diversity, and I shall raise the matter with the company canteen on Monday.”

Le Monde’s reports called Arnault “a lover of the arts and tax breaks”. The billionaire and LVMH chief executive, whose wealth is estimated by Bloomberg at $US158 billion ($226 billion), is currently fighting a €23 million ($37.4 million) tax bill.

He criticised Gabriel Zucman, the Parisian economist, last year for proposing a wealth tax.

Le Monde also claimed Arnault’s five children, who all work at LVMH, were driven by Succession-style rivalries and feuds. All five have executive roles at the business, but none is the heir apparent.

The alleged discord reportedly includes a long-running enmity between his second wife, Helene Mercier-Arnault, a Canadian-born concert pianist, and his son-in-law, the telecoms billionaire Xavier Niel, who sits on the board of Le Monde.

Arnault made light of the claims, describing his family as “united”. He said the journalists had turned his family of “five strong personalities” into “an Italian opera”.

“Among the Arnaults, apparently, one does not discuss, one plots,” Arnault said. “One does not deliberate, one competes. … What, in an ordinary family, is called a Sunday is called, in ours, an intrigue.”

LVMH is France’s largest company by market capitalisation and owns some of the world’s best-known brands, including Louis Vuitton, Moët Hennessy, Christian Dior, Tiffany and Bulgari.

Arnault also tried to buy rival luxury brand Hermès in 2010, kicking off a four-year corporate battle known as “the handbag war”.

Le Monde reported that Hermès ties were banned from Arnault’s suite at LVMH’s head office.

The journalists wrote: “Not even an occasional visitor would show up in Monsieur’s office wearing a Hermès tie. An aide would hand you a different one before you even reached the elevator.”

Arnault said visitors did not have their ties confiscated: “We let them keep them. We simply offer a second one, more discreet, for the elevator. A question of manners.

“I add, under the seal of secrecy, that I own several.”

Arnault said Le Monde had reported more favourably on the Wertheimer family, which owns Chanel, even though he and his family had cooperated more extensively with the two journalists.

“I suspect you, very clearly, of having punished transparency,” he wrote, addressing the journalists directly. “Let that serve as a lesson for your next subjects.”

But he said he would not be cancelling his subscription to Le Monde. “Rest assured, I shall keep doing the Monde crossword. That, at least, is excellent.”

Telegraph, London

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