Arnault Holds Barred

Bernard Arnault
Bernard Arnault is dealing with fresh accusations that he and other successful French businesspeople are “champions of redundancies and relocations,” as he put it in court. Photo: Nathan Laine/Bloomberg/Getty Images
Lauren Sherman
December 2, 2024

On Thanksgiving, Bernard Arnault took the stand in a Paris courtroom to testify as a witness in the criminal trial of Bernard Squarcini, France’s former top spy, who is being accused of various forms of corruption—including, in particular, spying on behalf of LVMH, both when he was head of France’s domestic intelligence agency and later, as a consultant for Europe’s second-largest company. According to prosecutors, Squarcini’s misdeeds included assigning his agents to track down a person who was blackmailing Arnault about an alleged mistress, as well as digging up dirt on François Ruffin, an Arnault nemesis and a far-left member of France’s National Assembly. Ruffin, a founder of the newspaper Fakir, also produced Merci, Patron! (Thanks, Boss!), a César-award-winning documentary attacking Arnault and LVMH’s labor practices. Neither Arnault nor LVMH are in the dock in the current criminal case, however.