Billionaire Bernard Arnault at the heart of a new biography
Paris - From his childhood in the Nord region to his attendance at Donald Trump's second inauguration, Bernard Arnault, head of the world's number one luxury group LVMH, is the subject of a critical biography published on Wednesday. This is the first of its kind in France in over twenty years.
In “Bernard Arnault, son univers impitoyable”, published by La Tribu, fashion industry specialist Audrey Millet explores his childhood as the son of a well-to-do family from Roubaix. His parents ran a construction company. The book charts his rise to become one of the wealthiest men in the world, heading a family fortune estimated by Bloomberg at 162 billion dollars in June 2026.
The author discusses his time at the prestigious French school, Polytechnique, where the young man excelled in probability calculation but less so in general knowledge, according to his grades. The book dedicates a few lines to his compulsory internship at the engineering school in Angers, where the military concluded he was “unfit to be entrusted with a position of responsibility”.
“What the French army identified as command failures, the management of the 1990s would rename: agility, transformational leadership, entrepreneurial spirit. The world was about to change its perspective,” analyses Audrey Millet.
Then came the acquisitions. First was Boussac in 1984, a textile empire that owned the jewel Christian Dior. This was followed by LVMH, then comprising Louis Vuitton and Moët-Hennessy, after manoeuvres that led the stock market commission to investigate.
Dozens of other houses were subsequently acquired to build the current empire of 75 companies, including Givenchy; Kenzo; Guerlain; Sephora; Pommery; and even Les Échos and Paris Match. Some takeover attempts failed, such as Gucci, which was ultimately snapped up in 1999 by François Pinault's PPR group. Another was Hermès, a case in which LVMH was penalised by the Financial Markets Authority.
The book also subtly highlights the support the businessman received from the state, particularly for the Boussac acquisition. “It was the French state that legally financed the operation,” writes the author.
In early June, Le Canard enchaîné reported pressure from the billionaire's associates on La Tribu. La Tribu is part of Les Nouveaux Editeurs group, in which François-Henri Pinault, chairman of the luxury group Kering, holds shares via his holding company Artémis.
“I can tell you that the pressure was very strong,” the book's editor, Julia Pavlowitch, told AFP, without elaborating further. “This book is a free publication from an independent publisher, in no way influenced by its shareholding (...). It is a traditional publication, the likes of which are becoming increasingly rare,” the editor continued. Contacted by AFP, LVMH declined to comment.
This article was translated to English using an AI tool.
FashionUnited uses AI language tools to speed up translating (news) articles and proofread the translations to improve the end result. This saves our human journalists time they can spend doing research and writing original articles. Articles translated with the help of AI are checked and edited by a human desk editor prior to going online. If you have questions or comments about this process email us at info@fashionunited.com