The economist Gabriel Zucman tried on Sunday with AFP that billionaire Bernard Arnault, who described him as “pseudo -university,” had to lead the debate on the highest patrimonial tax “with respect to truth and facts.”
Bernard Arnault, CEO of LVMH of luxury number one in the world, accused Gabriel Zucman on Saturday of putting “at the service of his ideology (…) a pseudo-university understanding,” he called “extreme left activist”, in the British newspaper Sunday Times.
“Mr. Arnault is wrong to question my professional qualifications when speaking to me of ‘academic pseudocompetent’. With the emergence of Trumpism, I saw this speech that denigrated knowledge and research in the United States,” Gabriel Zucman warned.
“Enjoy speech”
The economist also indicated that he was not in contact with Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu. His tax proposal is one of the emblematic subjects of the discussions he makes with the political parties, in order to prepare the next budget.
Gabriel Zucman had responded to the LVMH chief on Saturday night in X: “Hi, Mr. Bernard Arnault, La Febrera does not allow slander.”
“I was very surprised by the caricatural nature of your attacks. Your words that attack me leave the field of rationality and have no foundation,” he deplored.
“I have never been an activist in any movement or inserted anywhere. I am only an activity that my work as a researcher and teacher,” said Ecole’s professor Normale Supérieure and at the University of Berkeley.
“Absurd thing”
The Zucman Tax would consist of taxing up to 2% per year the equity of 100 million euros, which refers to 1,800 fiscal households, and would allow to raise 20 billion euros, less according to other experts.
This measure agitates the vindictive of the French commercial circles: “Investment brake” for the Medef, “absurd thing” flourishing “a story of French jealousy” for the bpifrance chief Nicolas Dufourcq.
“These reactions, such as Bernard Arnault saying that the floor tax would put the French economy on the ground, are disconnected from reality,” said Gabriel Zucman.
Source: BFM TV
