Arnault, who is the chief executive and chairman of LVMH, the parent company of luxury fashion brands Louis Vuitton, Dior and Tiffany & Co, said: \u201cThis is clearly not a technical or economic debate, but rather a clearly stated desire to destroy the French economy.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a statement to The Sunday Times, Arnault, 76, dismissed Zucman as \u201cfirst and foremost a far-left activist \u2026 who puts at the service of his ideology (which aims to destroy the liberal economy, the only one that works for the good of all) a pseudo-academic competence that is itself widely debated\u201d.<\/p>\n
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Gabriel Zucman<\/p>\n
NATHAN LAINE FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES<\/p>\n
The mooted introduction of a wealth tax is rocking the French economy. A poll by the French Institute of Public Opinion (Ifop), shows 86 per cent of people back the proposal. President Macron\u2019s appointment this month of Lecornu as prime minister<\/a> has made a wealth tax more likely. The opposition Socialist party, whose votes Lecornu needs to pass his budget, has demanded adoption of the tax as a precondition for their support. <\/p>\n In France, Zucman has become a household name. Last Thursday, half a million people took part in a general strike dominated by calls for greater social justice.<\/p>\n \u201cZucman Tax. Ultra rich, pay up,\u201d read one banner being carried towards the Place de la Bastille. <\/p>\n A supporter of the Zucman tax at the Let\u2019s Block Everything protest in Toulouse this month<\/p>\n FRED SCHEIBER\/SIPA\/SHUTTERSTOCK<\/p>\n Zucman, 38, is a former student of Thomas Piketty<\/a>, \u201cthe rock-star economist\u201d who first made waves in the 2010s with his work on economic equality. He explained his philosophy in an interview last week in his office in the prestigious \u00c9cole normale sup\u00e9rieure, a modern building in southern Paris. <\/p>\n Dressed informally in a white T-shirt, the father of three had pedalled through the gathering crowds across the city. He did not seem especially pleased to have his name on the proposed tax \u2014 or the banners. \u201cI would prefer it if it were called the Bernard Arnault tax,\u201d he added, speaking in English he perfected while teaching at the University of California, Berkeley.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople understand the basic reality that the super-rich don\u2019t pay enough tax,\u201d he continued, arguing that the current tax system creates \u201ca kind of snowballing effect for billionaires\u201d. <\/p>\n While most people can save only out of what is left after they have paid their taxes, the mega-rich can effectively do so out of their gross income. \u201cSo their wealth just keeps growing very, very fast, much faster than the rest of the population\u2019s.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2022 Young, angry, educated \u2014 and raring to rebel<\/a><\/p>\n Zucman has become inured to criticism. In recent days Patrick Martin, the leader of Medef, the employers\u2019 federation, accused him of plotting to expropriate the business community, while Philippe Corrot, co-founder and chief executive of Mirakl, a multibillion-pound e-commerce platform, claimed he was creating a \u201cdeadly trap that will destroy the French tech sector and its 1.3 million jobs\u201d.<\/p>\n Responding to Arnault\u2019s comments, Zucman denied he had been an activist in any movement or party and said he had won numerous awards for his work as an economist, including America\u2019s prestigious Clark medal. \u201cComing from one of the richest men in the world and in a context where academic freedoms are being challenged in a growing number of countries, this rhetoric is disturbing,\u201d he said. \u201cThis measure would simply ensure that billionaires contribute to public expenses at the same rate as other citizens.\u201d<\/p>\n There has nevertheless been considerable doubt over the effectiveness of taxing the mega-rich, especially when the taxes are introduced unilaterally. Only a handful of countries in the world, such as Norway, Spain and Switzerland levy a wealth tax<\/a>, while the revenue raised pales in comparison with the receipts from income tax or VAT.<\/p>\n A protester at Thursday\u2019s demonstration in the Place de la R\u00e9publique, Paris<\/p>\n APAYDIN ALAIN\/ABACA\/SHUTTERSTOCK EDITORIAL<\/p>\n France\u2019s own experience has been disappointing: its most recent attempt at a wealth tax a decade ago, under Fran\u00e7ois Hollande<\/a>, raised only a few hundred million euros, a tiny fraction of government revenue, and prompted some of the country\u2019s wealthy to leave, with some moving to London.<\/p>\n Zucman describes Hollande\u2019s efforts to soak the rich, which included a 75 per cent supertax imposed in 2012 on earnings above \u20ac1 million, as a \u201ctotal joke \u2026 invented 30 minutes before going on television\u201d.<\/p>\n One of Macron\u2019s first actions after becoming president in 2017 was to abolish the tax and replace it with a levy on property alone, which excluded financial assets, in which the mega-rich tend to hold most of their wealth.<\/p>\n Zucman\u2019s critics say his own tax is unlikely to work any better. In a joint opinion piece published in Le Monde this month, seven leading economists claimed it would raise just \u20ac5 billion a year, a quarter of what he predicts.<\/p>\n This, they said, would be in large part because the super-rich would modify their behaviour \u2014 or simply leave France. <\/p>\n \u201cConservative people look at this historical experience and say the wealth tax didn\u2019t work and will never work,\u201d he said. \u201cI think we can be a bit more constructive: we can learn about the mistakes that were made and how to fix them.\u201d<\/p>\n Crucially Hollande, like Fran\u00e7ois Mitterrand, a fellow socialist who was president from 1981, exempted wealth owned by entrepreneurs in the form of shares in their companies, a massive loophole that Zucman\u2019s own proposed tax aims to clos<\/p>\n Zucman believes a tax on the mega-rich is the way out of France\u2019s budget woes. In 2010, the combined wealth of France\u2019s 500 richest households was \u20ac200 billion, but by last year it had jumped sixfold to \u20ac1.2 trillion, taking it from 12 per cent of GDP to 42 per cent, according to Challenges magazine, which compiles the French equivalent of The Sunday Times Rich List<\/a>. <\/p>\n Measuring people\u2019s assets would not be difficult, especially in a country with a history of wealth taxes, he believes. Shares in publicly listed companies would be valued at market prices; those of fast-growing start-ups not yet listed could be assessed on the basis of values put on them during funding rounds.<\/p>\n Zucman also dismisses suggestions that the mega-rich will all simply leave France. Despite widespread reports of an exodus from Britain<\/a> in response to its recent dismantling of the advantageous \u201cnon-dom\u201d tax regime, he says that academic studies, including one done recently in Scandinavia, show the mega-rich are not as mobile as widely assumed.<\/p>\n \u201cOkay, a few people will leave, but the aggregate effects on the economy will be modest,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n To deter them, Zucman suggests a form of exit tax<\/a>, known as an \u201canti-exile\u201d shield, that would require those who leave to continue paying their dues for another, say, five or ten years, which he says is possible given a greater willingness in recent years for countries to exchange bank information.<\/p>\n \u201cIf people violate the law, the government is going to seize their assets, it\u2019s going to arrest them at the airport when they come back. That\u2019s the risk they will have to take,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Wealth taxes are at the forefront of public debate, not just in France, but also in America and Britain, where Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, looks poised to come up with ever more imaginative ways of tapping into people\u2019s assets in this November\u2019s budget<\/a>.<\/p>\n Zucman has become a leading figure in the debate. Last year he produced a report for the G20 summit in Brazil that called for a 2 per cent levy on the world\u2019s estimated 2,500 billionaires, although securing agreement would be difficult and could take years.<\/p>\n Nor is Zucman concerned it will put off a new generation of entrepreneurs from pursuing their dream. \u201cI\u2019ve never met someone aged 25 or 30 saying they\u2019re scared about paying a 2 per cent tax once they have more than a hundred million or a billion dollars,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u2022 No tax, no crime, no free speech. So would you move to Dubai?<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Protestor](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/\/768d0c7d-6897-479a-94cd-d56fadb0e601.jpg\")
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