How does Bernard Arnault keep his French media under control? Le Monde investigation

How Bernard Arnault controls the French media: Le Monde investigation

Bernard Arnault, owner of the LVMH conglomerate, is one of the richest and most powerful people in France and the world, with luxury brands including Louis Vuitton, Christian Dior, Bulgari and Hennessy. The billionaire's influence is not limited to the fashion industry; he has also influenced the French media for decades. He is said to have bought up publications, dictated their editorial policies, openly communicated his rules to journalists, and deprived other newspapers and magazines he disliked of the huge advertising revenues that LVMH generates. "With the help of the press under his control, he seeks to amass even more wealth, shield LVMH from unpleasant inquiries and influence French politics."

Le Monde, which is free from Arnault’s influence, published a six-part series of articles in July on his activities, conducting a wide-ranging investigation into his political influence, tax breaks, family disputes and pressure on the press. The newspaper highlights the part of the investigation that focuses on the billionaire’s relationship with the French media.

Bernard Arnault began buying media outlets in the 1990s. According to Le Monde, even then he viewed the media only as a means of promoting his personal tastes and views. In fact, he does not understand the media industry very well. Moreover, he believes that since he pays for it, he has the right to expect the media outlets he owns to reflect his conservative and right-wing views.

For example, Arnault, a classical music enthusiast, believes that there is no point in listening to music of other genres. That is why he compiled a list of about 30 composers (including Chopin, Beethoven and Arnault's wife - pianist Hélène Mercier) and sent it to the schedulers of his radio station, Radio Classique. This radio station also broadcasts historical stories by Franck Ferrand. Currently, listeners listen to these stories at the same time as the owner of the radio station - when he goes to work in the morning (at 9:00) and when he returns from lunch (at 14:00).

In 2021 - a year before the presidential elections in France, Radio Classique broadcast political interviews every morning. However, Arnault, who is conservative and right-wing, insisted that the interviews not include left-wing guests who support raising taxes for the super-rich. When the radio station staff explained that this was legally impossible due to the rules of pluralism, Arnault simply stopped the political broadcast.

On Mondays, Arnault meets with the editors-in-chief of the publications under his control and analyzes with them all the materials published over the past week that he does not like. "We are surrounded by a minefield, a hellish environment," one of the editors-in-chief of the media under Arnault's control told Le Monde.

The editorial staff of publications controlled by LVMH is pressured not only by the owner of the conglomerate himself, but also by his relatives and close associates. They give instructions to the editors-in-chief, participate in the hiring of employees, and insist that articles be published that are beneficial to LVMH. For example, the eldest son, Antoine Arnault, who is responsible for communications at LVMH, reads most of the materials being prepared for publication before they are published.

Taxation is apparently a sore point for one of the world's richest men. The business newspaper Les Echos, which once promoted the ideas of economic liberalism, publishes daily columns by authors who discuss the dangers of excessive tax burdens on business and the inadmissibility of restrictions on the market economy. Before Arnault bought the business publication Les Echos in 2007, the editorial direction of the newspaper was economically liberal. He could have turned Les Echos into a French version of the Financial Times.

But he uses it to protect his friends, confront his competitors, and promote his own ideas. Indeed, the journalists of Les Echos have to reckon not only with Arnault's political views, but also with the interests of LVMH. The pages of this publication almost do not mention companies that are competitors of LVMH.

For example, the head of Kering, François-Henri Pinault, appointed Luca de Meo, whom LVMH wanted to hire, as the director of his conglomerate. As a result, this appointment, which was of great importance for the French fashion business, went unnoticed by Les Echos for several weeks. Moreover, at the request of the LVMH management, the fifth line of the article about the appointment of de Meo clearly indicated all the difficulties of Kering - falling sales and falling stock prices.

Another competitor that Arnault despises is Hermès, one of the few large companies in the fashion industry that remains entirely in the hands of the founding family. LVMH and Hermès have an unwritten agreement not to “attack” each other in the press, and Arnault abides by it: Les Echos simply does not write anything about Hermès. If it is impossible not to publish a story, it is immediately removed from the site so that it does not appear in search results.

This only applies to “good” news. But if something unpleasant happens in Hermès’s business, Arnault-owned publications are eager to publish the most vile materials about its competitor. According to sources in Le Monde’s LVMH and Paris Match magazine (a weekly magazine dedicated to celebrities and popular culture that Arnault bought in 2024), the conglomerate’s communications department provided Paris Match with a small photo of Hermès CEO Axel Dumas with Jeffrey Epstein. It is not clear how the photo ended up in LVMH’s hands.

Arnault bought Le Parisien, a newspaper devoted to the political, economic and social life of the French capital, in 2015, in his words, "because it has the word 'Paris' in its name." In fact, LVMH is interested in the real estate and commercial sector in the city. Both Le Parisien and the economic magazine Challenges, which Arnault bought in 2025, have tried to draw up documents that would guarantee their editorial independence. According to Le Monde, these attempts were "unfruitful."

It would have been logical for Bernard Arnault to also buy France's main conservative newspaper, Le Figaro, and he even dreamed of it in the 1990s. But there was no need for this: LVMH simply became one of the largest advertisers of this publication.

The billionaire simply deprives the media that investigates Arnault's activities and publishes critical articles about him of a large part of their income. In 1989, L'Expansion, which is now out of print, business magazine publishes an investigation called "Arno Unmasks" and a cover with a wolf's muzzle peeking out from under Arnault's portrait. In response, LVMH withdraws all advertising from the media holding that owns the magazine, and then hires former police officers to find out who within LVMH leaked information to L'Expansion journalists.

The L'Expansion incident is not the only example of Arnault's approach to journalistic investigations.

In 2016, journalist, public activist and left-wing politician François Ruffen made a satirical documentary called "Merci Patron!", criticizing LVMH for its unethical treatment of employees. Three years later, it was revealed that LVMH management had hired a private agent to monitor the editorial staff of the newspaper Fakir, published by Ruffen, who was then preparing to run for parliament.

The agent was hired by the conglomerate In 2012, a consulting company founded by Bernard Squarcini, the former head of French counterintelligence, found him. A criminal case was opened against Squarcini in connection with the surveillance of the fakir. The investigation proved that he acted on the orders of LVMH, but the case ended with the signing of a public interest settlement after LVMH paid a fine of 10 million euros. Arnault and several former top managers of LVMH were called as witnesses in court. Squarcini was sentenced to four years in prison.

In the history of Bernard Arnault's relations with the media, Le Monde highlights his friendship with Vincent Bolloré, the head of the Bolloré Group family empire and one of France's most influential media tycoons. Critics often attribute the growing right-wing influence in the French media to Bolloré.

Although Arnault and Bolloré have long been acquaintances, In 2020, the LVMH boss got even closer by investing €80 million in the large media group Lagardère, then selling his shares to Bolloré. Arnault received about €190 million for these shares, and Bolloré gained control of part of the media holding, including the Paris Match magazine, which is part of it.

In the spring of 2023, Les Echos published a review of Eric Orsen's book "Histoire d’un ogre". In it, the author called Vincent Bolloré "dangerous for democracy". Bolloré complained to Arnault, who was then preparing to buy Paris Match magazine. Arnault did not want to break off relations with his business partner and fired Les Echos editor-in-chief Nicole Barre. This incident caused great controversy in France and abroad. Only a year later was the editorial board able to confirm a new editor-in-chief - Christophe Jakubishin, who previously worked at Le Monde.

This incident Bolloré has become even closer. In the fall of 2024, Paris Match was fully owned by Arnault and has largely become a platform for promoting LVMH brands.

On July 26, in response to Le Monde's "L'empire Bernard Arnault" series, Bernard Arnault published an open letter on the LVMH press service's Twitter account under the heading "Merci" ("Thank you").

In his open letter, Arnault addresses the issues raised by Le Monde, including his son-in-law, Xavier Niel, who is among the shareholders of the publication. He raises the ironic question of what criteria are used to measure the independence of French media.

But Arnault deliberately ignores one aspect: at Le Monde, there is an institutional barrier between shareholders and editorial staff. exists. Simply put, the owners of the publication do not determine the work of the editorial staff and cannot influence the topics and content of the materials that the publication covers. In contrast, in publications under Arnault's control, such a protection mechanism for the editorial staff is practically absent.

Another noteworthy point is that if Niel had really had the opportunity to influence Le Monde, this investigation would probably not have been published at all.