Nearly five million people in France can be considered rich, according to a new report revealing the income thresholds for high-earners.
The report was published this Tuesday, June 2, by the Observatoire des inégalités, a nonprofit that studies social inequality in France.
According to the report, for a single person to be considered wealthy they must earn at least €4,292 a month after tax, while for a couple it is at least €6,438. For a family with two teenage children over the age of 14, the amount rises to €10,730.
The report calculated the wealth threshold as twice the French median monthly income, which for a single person is around €2,146, for a couple €3,219, and for a family with two teenage children €5,365.
The report, which was based on 2023 figures from INSEE, France’s national statistics agency, found that under these criteria 7.5% of the French population, or 4.8 million people, are considered to be high-income earners who meet France’s “rich” threshold.
Income thresholds for poverty are defined at €1,073 or less for a single person, €1,610 or less for a couple, and €2,683 or less for a family with two teenagers, highlighting the ongoing wealth gap in the country.
Among those in the high-earner bracket, 74% are senior executives in the private or public sector, and 13% are business owners. Age is also a factor, with 73% of the wealthy over 45.
Of the 7.5% who belong to this top income tier, 1% have income of more than €7,512, while a small number of people earn several hundred times the minimum wage.
At the very top, the rise of the super-rich has accelerated, widening the gap far beyond the high-income threshold discussed in the report.
For example, the Hermès family fortune is estimated at around €163 billion, enough to match the combined value of all residential housing in major cities such as Marseille and Strasbourg.
Where in France do the wealthy live?
Note that “richness” partly depends on location in France. This is because living costs vary significantly between places like Paris and rural areas, where incomes may be lower but living standards can be supported by other assets such as property or land.
According to the report, location is major factor in wealth distribution, with 35% of the France's richest individuals living in the Paris metropolitan area.
This is hardly surprising, given that the city is the headquarters for many of the major companies and institutions where the rich work.
The report reveals that among high-earners living in Paris, only 8% live in cramped accommodation, 3.5 times less than the rest of the city's population.
Outside of the French capital, 45% of high-earners live in major provincial cities. Only 15% live in rural areas.
The commune with the highest concentration of wealthy residents was Neuilly-sur-Seine, west of Paris, where nearly half of its residents enjoy a standard of living above the average wealth threshold, a proportion 6.5 times higher than the national average.
In second place was the commune of Divonne-les-Bains, in the suburbs of Geneva, whose percentage of wealthy residents (48%) was nearly as high as Neuilly-sur-Seine. This was followed by four districts of Paris: the 7th, 8th, 16th, and 6th arrondissements, where the percentage of wealthy consistently ranked above 40%.
What are the living conditions of wealthy people in France?
Among the highest earners (the top 10%), 88% own their homes, which are typically around 30% larger than the average living spaces in France. This figure rises to 45% in other cities across the country.
Additionally, three-quarters of them go on holiday every year, while 40% employ domestic staff such as nannies, gardeners, and cleaners.
These wealthy individuals are usually over the age of 45, as experience and career progression tend to lead to higher salaries.
Overall, being above the wealth threshold in France is associated with stable employment, home ownership, and significantly higher material comfort.
The standard of living in the INSEE report is calculated by dividing a household’s disposable income by the number of consumption units. The number of consumption units is a way to account for household size: the first adult counts as 1 unit, each additional adult aged 14 or over counts as 0.5, and each child under 14 counts as 0.3.
These units follow the OECD-modified scale, a method developed by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) to make incomes comparable across households of different sizes and is now used by INSEE in its income and inequality statistics.
Inherited wealth is a factor
The report also looked at household wealth, finding that in many cases high-earners come from wealthy homes.
Defining a wealthy household as possessing more than €820,400 (four times the median wealth), it found that 11% of households in France are wealthy.
Both inheritance and age were also major factors, with 82% of households in the wealthiest 10% belonging to those from privileged social backgrounds, and 91% are over 40 years old.
Unsurprisingly, high income and significant savings usually go hand in hand, with wealthy households putting aside on average 33% of their income, allowing them to build up their assets.
How does France compare with other countries?
As might be expected, in the US there is a much sharper divide between the wealthy and the rest of society. A 2023 report by the US statistics agency, Pew Research, used a similar methodology to the French study - calculating its wealth threshold as twice the median income.
The report found that the typical upper-income US household had a median net worth ($803,400) 33 times higher than the wealth of the typical lower-income household ($24,500).
The UK meanwhile has no widely accepted official "rich" threshold with the Office of National Statistics (ONS) instead separating out high-earners as a percentage of the population.
An ONS report for 2024 found that average annual household disposable income for the richest fifth of the population was £71,100, compared to an overall median disposable income of £36,700, dropping to £16,800 for the poorest fifth of the population.
