France’s richest man, LVMH chief Bernard Arnault, testified Thursday within the influence-peddling trial of the previous head of France’s home intelligence company, denying any data of an alleged scheme to guard the posh group.
Bernard Squarcini, the previous head of the DCRI safety service (since renamed the DGSI), is certainly one of 10 males on trial and charged with utilizing his safety contacts for personal achieve, together with acquiring confidential info on behalf of LVMH.
Squarcini faces 11 fees within the Paris legal court docket case, together with affect peddling, misuse of public funds and compromising nationwide safety info.
“I would like to point out that I am here as a witness, a simple witness, and that my indictment was never considered by the investigating magistrates,” Arnault mentioned in his opening assertion.
“I was completely unaware” of the alleged scheme, he added.
The fees relate each to the interval when Squarcini headed the DCRI from 2008-12 and to his subsequent return to the personal sector, when he labored largely for LVMH as a marketing consultant.
Investigators say that as early as 2008, DCRI officers have been deployed to attempt to establish a blackmailer concentrating on Arnault.
Different allegations relate to spying on Francois Ruffin, a former journalist who’s now a number one left-wing lawmaker — and, from 2013 to 2016, the leftist newspaper Fakir that Ruffin based.
Earlier than his 2017 election to parliament, Ruffin produced a satirical movie about Arnault titled “Merci Patron” (“Thanks Boss”) that gained a Cesar award — French cinema’s equal of an Oscar.
Ruffin, whose attorneys requested that Arnault testify, has mentioned that the lawsuit had “been decapitated” as a result of LVMH itself was not within the dock.
The corporate settled out of court docket in 2021, paying 10 million euros in fines. Arnault was interrogated by investigating magistrates however neither he nor LVMH have been ever placed on trial.
LVMH had been involved concerning the actions of Ruffin, who on the time was planning to disrupt its shareholder conferences.
‘Absolutely not’
However Arnault mentioned that within the accord with investigating magistrates “it is stated that the group does not recognise any responsibility”, saying the deal had been “proposed” by the magistrates.
Agreeing to the deal was a query of “avoiding being caught up in the media uproar that followed”, Arnault instructed the court docket.
He additionally denounced Ruffin, saying “I think he is trying to exploit this trial for personal, media, political and even commercial reasons”.
Requested by the decide if he was conscious of an tried blackmail concentrating on his personal life in 2008, for which the DCRI mobilised its brokers to establish the blackmailer, Arnault replied: “Absolutely not.”
Arnault was additionally questioned if he was knowledgeable by Pierre Gode, the vp of the group who died in 2018, of surveillance of Francois Ruffin and Fakir. He replied in equivalent vogue: “Absolutely not.”
Arnault, who repeatedly vies with the likes of Elon Musk for the title of the world’s richest individual, has alongside along with his household a fortune of $158.6 billion, in line with Forbes journal.
He additionally rejected the allegations regarding LVMH’s work practices in Ruffin’s documentary, describing his group as one which pays “8 billion” euros to the state per yr in taxes and “recruits the most in France”.
LVMH has sought to additional broaden its empire particularly into media, final month taking management of the shiny weekly Paris Match to affix the dailies Les Echos and Le Parisien in its media steady.
In one other eye-catching transfer, the Arnault household is ready to purchase a controlling stake in soccer membership Paris FC in a transfer that would make the Ligue 2 outfit a rival to French giants Paris Saint-Germain.
