Bernard Arnault, chairman and chief executive officer of LVMH, has published a rare public letter titled "Merci" to answer a six-month investigative series by Le Monde. The letter takes direct aim at what Arnault describes as an editorial choice to dwell on family power, internal rivalry and personal relationships while leaving aside LVMH’s long-term contribution to the French economy, culture and jobs.
Answering the “royal family” framing
At the start of the letter, Arnault refers to Le Monde’s description of the Arnault family as “the last royal family in France.” He says he read that line while drinking tea, then received WhatsApp messages from his children asking whether they would now be expected to bow before their father. His reply, he writes, was: “Bonjour Monsieur is enough.” The family laughed, and Arnault says it became the happiest moment of his week.
Arnault notes that Le Monde assigned two full-time reporters and spent six months on the series. He says that effort is why he chose to respond personally, opening with a simple “Merci.”
He rejects the idea that LVMH is a family company defined by court intrigue and succession warfare. According to Arnault, his five children each oversee different maisons, build teams and make business decisions. Sunday family meals, he says, are ordinary family life, even if outsiders choose to read them as power struggles. “In an ordinary family, that is called Sunday; in ours, it becomes a palace conspiracy,” he writes. He adds that family members are not scheming against one another but sharing responsibility for the business.
Political access and selective scrutiny
Arnault does not deny that he has been in contact with French presidents. He argues, though, that the picture is incomplete if those contacts are singled out in isolation. He says he has also interacted with several U.S. presidents, British prime ministers, German chancellors and the Emperor of Japan, and questions why the reporting concentrated on French political figures alone.
China criticism and exports
The letter also responds to criticism that LVMH is heavily reliant on the Chinese market. Arnault argues that if selling into China is supposed to trigger moral scrutiny, then the same standard should be applied to Airbus, which he says has sold more than 2,000 aircraft to China, as well as to many other French exporters. In his view, LVMH should not be isolated as the sole target.
Factories, craft and employment left out
Arnault says Le Monde overlooked what he considers LVMH’s core value. He points to hundreds of production workshops in France, large numbers of craft apprentices trained each year, and support for traditional skills across leather, jewelry, watchmaking, glass and wine. He also says the group creates hundreds of thousands of jobs.
By contrast, he says, the series devoted little space to those subjects and instead concentrated on family dinners, wardrobes and private life. Arnault writes that the press is free to choose its angle, but says it is regrettable when gossip takes precedence over the crafts and people that sustain France’s luxury industry.
Charity, tax questions and comparisons with Chanel
Arnault also challenges suggestions that he uses philanthropy for tax purposes. He lists a €200 million donation for the reconstruction of Notre-Dame de Paris, €50 million for a mathematics research center, and the creation of the Louis Vuitton Foundation, which he says attracts about 1.5 million visitors a year.
French law already encourages companies to support public-interest projects, he writes. If critics believe the system is flawed, the proper response would be to change the law rather than fault those who donate within it.
Near the end of the letter, Arnault contrasts coverage of his family with Le Monde’s past portrayal of the Wertheimer family, owners of Chanel. He says the Wertheimers were described as discreet, philanthropic and far from the spotlight, while the Arnault family was cast in terms such as court life, fear and power struggle.
Arnault says the main difference may be that the Wertheimer family did not grant the press the same kind of deep access, whereas his own family cooperated with a six-month investigation and, in his view, ended up receiving harsher treatment as a result.