Two large bosses compete by microphones interposed: “I have of course never said that we were going to relocate the LVMH group,” said its CEO Bernard Arnault this Friday, January 31 on the social network X, after being accused by Michel -Leard Leclerc to make “blackmail”.
“It is precisely because I love France and that I hope that our country continues to remain competitive that I wanted to alert to measures which seem to me in all points counterproductive”, adds Bernard Arnault, referring At the corporate tax surcharge provided in the draft budget for 2025. Tuesday, on the sidelines of the presentation of the annual LVMH results, he had denounced this surcharge – supposed to target large companies and bring 8 billion euros to The State – as a “Made in France” tax which “pushes to relocation”.
“What I said is that the tax measures envisaged are an incentive to relocate, since they tax the made in France but not the French-style companies,” he insists on xrecalling that LVMH employs nearly 200,000 people directly and indirectly in France, being “the first private recruiter in France”.
Friday morning, the president of the strategic committee of the E.Leclerc centers, Michel-Edouard Leclerc, had mentioned “a blackmail”: “It is not necessarily positively impacting to have one of the richest men in France who says: ‘ If that does not do so, I leave the country ‘”, adding that no boss of E.Leclerc stores would make” blackmail like that “.
“I advise him to sell more French products in his supermarkets”
Shaving, Bernard Arnault answered him on X: “As for Mr. Leclerc, since he seems to want to defend French SMEs, I advise him to sell more French products in his supermarkets and stop pressing French suppliers, at risk to put them in difficulty, by trying to obtain from them from the prices ever lower. “
“That he shows in this way his patriotism, rather than criticizing a group that promotes France in the world with its craftsmen and suppliers, helping them to develop in our country,” said the billionaire, who Directs the world’s world number one.