He is known as the "wolf in cashmere" - the owner of the world's largest luxury group whose brands, including Louis Vuitton, Dior and Tiffany, have made him one of the richest people in the world, reports the Guardian.
However, Bernard Arnault, a close friend of Donald Trump, has found himself targeted by journalist unions in France for buying up almost all of the country's business and economic press.
Reporters Without Borders said Arnault has "almost total control" over the main business media in France after his LVMH group bought the centrist business weekly Challenges.
LVMH, whose portfolio includes fashion brands, perfumes, champagne and spirits, already owns a number of business media, including leading economic daily Lez Eco and business information service L'Agèfi.
Reporters Without Borders and journalists' unions have filed two separate complaints over the acquisition of Çelindziz. The French Council of State is considering whether the authorities failed to properly assess the extent of LVMH's ownership of business media, while the competition authority is considering unions' claims that the group "abused a dominant position" by taking over the weekly.
"This is a textbook example of the loopholes in French legislation that fails to control the concentration of media ownership," said Lorre Chauvel, head of the French-Italian division of Reporters Without Borders.
LVMH did not comment on the allegations when contacted by The Guardian. Arnault, who also owns the daily newspaper Le Parisien and the magazine Paris Match, told a Senate committee in 2022 that he buys media “in the general interest” to protect important titles and ensure their survival.
Its expansion into the media sector comes at a time of increasing debate about the few billionaires who dominate media ownership and shape the media landscape ahead of next spring's presidential elections. The far right is currently enjoying high support as Emmanuel Macron's second term nears its end.
The most prominent of these billionaires is Vincent Bolloré, a conservative industrialist with ties to the far right. He has been accused of using his powerful media empire, including the television channel Cine News, to give space to reactionary voices. His large presence in the publishing and film industries has also sparked a revolt among writers and film workers. Bolloré rejects the criticism and describes himself as a Christian Democrat.
Other media billionaires include Rodolfo Saade, the CEO of the world's third-largest shipping company CMA CGM, headquartered in Marseille. His growing media empire includes the news channel BFM TV, the newspaper La Provence, the weekly La Tribune Dimanche and the online publication La Tribune, a former business newspaper previously owned by Arnault.
Czech energy billionaire Daniel Kretinsky, owner of the British postal company Royal Mail, is also building a media and publishing empire in France. Telecom billionaire Xavier Niel, whose partner is Delphine Arnault, daughter of Bernard Arnault and CEO of Christian Dior Couture, was the main shareholder of Le Monde before transferring his stake to a fund. The Dassault family, owners of Dassault Aviation, owns the daily Le Figaro.
Yet Arnault, whose fortune is estimated by Forbes at around $145 billion, is by far the richest, most influential and best-known business leader among media owners in France.
Born into an industrial family in the northern French town of Roubaix, he began his career in construction and real estate. In 1984, he lobbied the French government to allow him to take over the nearly bankrupt textile company Busak, which owned the Christian Dior brand. After decades of acquisitions, LVMH has become the most valuable luxury group in the world.
Arnault is best known politically for his opposition to wealth taxes. In the early 1980s, he temporarily moved to the United States to escape what he saw as a hostile business environment under socialist President François Mitterrand and his tax on the wealthy. There, he developed a close friendship with Donald Trump.
Arnault, his wife and two children were the only French guests at Trump's inauguration for a second term in January last year. He said afterwards that he felt "winds of optimism" in the US, while returning to France was like "a cold shower".
In April, Arnault was among leading French businessmen reported to have dined with Marine Le Pen of the far-right National Rally, whose party is gaining increasing access to business circles that had previously shunned it.
That same month, Pari Mach, which is owned by Arnault, published a cover story about potential National Rally presidential candidate Giordano Bardella walking hand in hand with his girlfriend, Princess Maria Carolina de Bourbon-Two Sicilies, in what was seen as an attempt to soften his image ahead of the election.
Journalists at Challenging and Les Ecos are trying to preserve the charters that guarantee their editorial independence. At Challenging, there is a fear that Arnault prefers a much more liberal market approach than the paper's current centrist, social and progressive editorial line.
Union representatives say Arnault's group has not yet signed the Challenge charter, which expires next year unless renewed. Les Ecos's charter expires in 2027. Both editorial offices have staged unprecedented strikes.
“Bernard Arnault has practically appropriated the best part of the business press in just a few years,” said Alexis Levrie, a media historian at the University of Reims. “He has a near monopoly on economic news.”
Levrie believes that Macron, despite his election promises, has not passed laws to limit media ownership and protect pluralism.
"There is no precedent in French history for such a reversal of the relationship between economic and political power. Economic power, which owns the media, can impose its views on political power," he said.
During a Senate hearing in 2022, Arnault admitted that in 2012 he withdrew advertising from the left-wing newspaper Libération after the paper published a front page that he claimed was “aggressive” and “inaccurate,” suggesting he wanted to flee to Belgium to avoid tax increases.
Senators also questioned him about the case of former French internal security chief Bernard Squarcini. Part of the charges related to an alleged scheme to spy on former journalist and now MP François Rouffin while he was filming a documentary about LVMH. The company paid 10 million euros in a settlement in 2021, without admitting guilt. Arnault said he had no knowledge of the alleged operation and denied any responsibility.
Sophie Taye-Pollian, a Green MP who worked on a bill to protect media pluralism by limiting ownership concentration, said it was disappointing that, despite public consultations, no law had been adopted during Macron's term.
"When an area as important as the business press is controlled by one of the richest individuals in France and the world, it certainly raises serious questions," she said.
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