Nearly two million households classified as millionaires in France
New report found that 6.5% of households have assets over €1 million
A view of Saint-Tropez port. The wealthy represent a small but significant portion of the French population
Mazur Travel/Shutterstock
A new survey on wealth in France has revealed that just under two million households (around 6.5%) are millionaires.
The latest report by the Observatoire des inégalités, a non-profit that studies social inequality in France, also found that 11% of households qualify as wealthy, meaning they own assets of more than €820,400.
Based on the most recent figures from France's national statistics agency (Insee), which counted 30.1 million households in metropolitan France in 2022, this 11% translates to 3.3 million wealthy households.
The figure of 6.5% cited in the survey translates to 1.95 million households with assets exceeding €1 million.
By contrast, the Observatoire report noted that only 0.6% of French households, or around 181,000, pay France's annual property wealth tax (impôt sur la fortune immobilière, or IFI).
Put another way, IFI taxpayers represent fewer than one in 10 of France's millionaire households. The comparison highlights the difference between being a millionaire on paper and having enough taxable property wealth to trigger the tax.
The IFI applies only to net real-estate assets worth more than €1.3 million and excludes most financial assets. Under IFI, a taxpayer's principal residence also benefits from a 30% allowance, while mortgages and certain property-related debts can be deducted.
With so many households classified as millionaires not meeting the threshold for the property wealth tax, this suggests many have relevant property-related assets between €1m and €1.3m or that their financial worth falls below the IFI threshold once deductions are taken into account, or that they hold wealth in investments and valuables rather than real estate.
How many billionaires are there?
The report identified 145 billionaires in the country. Among them is Bernard Arnault, chairman and CEO of the luxury goods group LVMH, and widely considered Europe’s richest person.
With a personal wealth estimated at $233 billion at its peak, Arnault nevertheless came out in the press last year against a proposal to make sure that people with fortunes worth more than €100m pay annual taxes equal to at leats 2% of their wealth, claiming it would “destroy the liberal economy.”
The Hermès family meanwhile, whose collective assets are estimated to exceed €160 billion, possesses a fortune worth more than the value of all the housing in Marseille, the report noted.
The report comes at the same time as a study in the UK showing the salary requirements to be counted among the richest in British society.
Recent statistics from the HMRC revealed that in the 2023-24 tax year, a salary of £207,000 or above a year was needed to be in the top 1pc of earners - £50,000 higher than a decade ago.
HMRC figures also showed the number of people on six-figure salaries jumping by 16% in a year to 878,000, representing an increase of more than double in ten years.
Widening wealth gap
Even allowing for billionaire outliers, income and wealth inequality in France has increased significantly more at the top levels of society over the past 30 years, the report said.
Among the top 10% of households the average standard of living has increased by 40%, twice as fast as among the bottom 10%.
The financial wealth of the top 0.1% has quadrupled between 2003 and 2022, benefiting a few thousand households at the very top. The report noted that over the last 20 years the 500 wealthiest individuals in France saw their combined wealth increase 6.6 times.
Wealth also correlates closely with social background and age, with 82% of households in the wealthiest 10% belonging to those from privileged social backgrounds. 91% are over 40 years old.
Number of wealthy has fallen
Despite the consolidation of wealth by the very rich, the overall numbers for wealth have fallen in France over the last two decades.
In the 13 years between 2010 and 2023, the number of wealthy people - meaning those with assets of more than €820,400 – fell from 5.2 million to 4.8 million, a drop of some 400,000 people. This translates to a percentage drop of 0.9%, from 8.4% in 2010 to 7.5% in 2023.
This decline was corroborated in the Observatoire report from two years ago.
2011 marked the peak of income inequality in France, with the most significant decrease in the number of individuals classified as rich occurring between 2011 and 2013 as a result of tax reforms brought in by then-French president Nicolas Sarkozy and his successor François Hollande.
Later on, social welfare benefits brought in in the wake of the gilets jaunes movement, such as increases in the employment bonus for low-income workers, also helped to reduce wealth inequalities, the study reported.
The report is the fourth edition of the wealth survey to be published by the Observatoire, an independent non-profit founded in 2003 by journalists and researchers to promote more awareness about inequality issues in French public debate.
While the organisation claims to have no political bias and draws its data from official statistics, its definition of who qualifies as "rich" has sparked debate in sections of the French media.
