[ Editorial ] Thanks Bernie

Petit Paris is in a full-blown tizzy: Bernard Arnault has opened an account on X, “like any self-respecting startup boss,” dared to write Jean-Charles Tréhan, LVMH’s communications chief.

Le Monde has devoted a full summer-long investigative series in seven episodes to what it calls a “war of succession” inside LVMH. Yet another storm in the stagnant Parisian fishbowl that interests almost no one, but which perfectly illustrates the sheer panic that has gripped France’s oligarchs and politico-media class at the prospect of compromising information leaking online, WikiLeaks-style, and robbing them of their carefully curated scoops.

Leading the charge are Raphaëlle Bacqué and Vanessa Schneider—two of the three main “order prepers” in Le Monde’s newsroom, alongside Ariane Chemin. Let us recall Mme Bacqué complaining at the “Les idées mènent le monde” literary festival about the unfair competition journalists now face from competent anonymous voices on social media. Together, Bacqué and Schneider authored the book Successions: L’argent, le sang et les larmes (Albin Michel, 2022), in which they scrutinize twelve major French capitalist dynasties.

77 years old Bernard Arnault’s role in Emmanuel Macron’s rise is public knowledge, as is the fact that LVMH dresses Brigitte Macron for free—probably the most loathed woman in France. That association is starting to weigh heavily on the LVMH’s image, not to mention the still-unresolved and very murky Hermès affair.