Paris (Reuters) -The economist Gabriel Zucman vigorously defended his proposal for a tax on the highest heritage in France after the strong attacks by Bernard Arnault, the CEO of the luxury group LVMH, considered one of the richest men in the world.

Quoted by the Sunday Times, Bernard Arnault accused Gabriel Zucman of being “first and foremost an activist from the far left (…) 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 university pseudo-skill itself widely debated”.

For the LVMH boss, the 2% floor tax offered by Gabriel Zucman on homes whose heritage exceeds 100 million euros constitutes an “offensive which is fatal for our economy”.

The economist denounced on X “the caricatural character of (these)” outgoing “attacks in the field of rationality and (…) without foundation” and repeated that his floor proposal aims to correct an “anomaly” relating to the fact that the wealthiest pay proportionally very little income tax.

Assuring that he had “never been an activist in any movement or inserted in any party”, Gabriel Zucman recalls his status as university professor at the School Normale Supérieure and Berkeley and defends the relevance of his project, which he says supported by many international renown economists, including seven Nobel Prize.

In France, this project is led by the left parties, in particular the Socialist Party which requires its establishment, even if it means amending it, so as not to immediately censor the future government that the new Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu is trying to form.

(Writing of Paris)

Copyright © 2025 Thomson Reuters