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France's richest man and LVMH boss Bernard Arnault, who denies he is becoming a tax exile despite seeking Belgian nationality as Paris moves to impose a 75-per cent wealth tax. Source: AFP
FRANCE'S richest man, Bernard Arnault, said he would sue a newspaper over the headline - "Get lost, you rich idiot!"
The headline was on top of a story about Mr Arnault applying for Belgian nationality.
Mr Arnault, the boss of the luxury conglomerate LVMH, insists his move is not aimed at avoiding high taxes about to be imposed on the wealthy by France's new Socialist government.
"Bernard Arnault has no other choice, given the extreme vulgarity and the violence of the headline ... but to sue Liberation," he said in a statement that said he was suing the left-wing daily Mr Sarkozy's left-wing critics.
Mr Arnault, the world's fourth-richest man whose fortune Forbes magazine estimates at $US41 billion (39.5 billion), was close to Mr Sarkozy.
He rejected criticism that he was being anti-patriotic, insisting he was not becoming a tax exile, despite seeking Belgian nationality as crisis-hit France moves to impose a 75-per cent tax on top earners.
"I am and will remain a tax resident in France and in this regard I will, like all French people, fulfill my fiscal obligations," he said, adding that the bid for dual nationality was "linked to personal reasons".
Following the election of previous Socialist president Francois Mitterrand in 1981, Mr Arnault lived in the United States for three years, returning to France after the Socialists switched to a more conservative economic course.
In a televised interview, President Francois Hollande, also a Socialist, said Mr Arnault "must weigh up what it means to seek another nationality because we are proud to be French".
"One has to appeal to patriotism during this period," he said.
Mr Arnault's move has been widely condemned by French political parties on both the left and the far-right right as treacherous.
But Francois Fillon, who was prime minister under Mr Mr Hollande implemented the new tax rate.
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