Barely has the fire been put out before some of the richest people in France rush to help rebuild it. From François-Henri Pinault, the ultimate owner of Gucci, comes €100m (£90m). Not to be outdone, the Arnault family at Louis Vuitton put up €200m. More of the wealthy join the bidding, as if a Damien Hirst is going under the hammer. Within just three days, France’s billionaire class has coughed up nearly €600m. Or so their press releases state.
A few folk question this very public display of plutocratic piety, but we are of course professional malcontents. Some of Paris’s 3,600 rough sleepers protest at how so many euros can be found for a new cathedral roof yet not a cent to put a roof over their heads – still, what do the poor know of the sublime? From all other seats, the applause is deafening. “Billionaires can sometimes come in really handy,” remarks the editor of Moneyweek. “Everybody is at our bedside,” says French TV celeb Stéphane Bern. Flush with cash, French president Emmanuel Macron vows the gothic masterpiece will be rebuilt within five years. Front pages scored, studio hours filled, the world moves on. You almost certainly haven’t heard the rest of the story – yet you should, because it comes with one hell of a twist. [...]
Advertisement Whether in France or Britain or the US, the rich give money to the grand institutions at the heart of our cultures to secure their social status in plaques and photo opportunities. In much the same way, they fund our political parties, then enjoy the kickbacks when they form a government. As Julia Cagé, an economist at Paris’s SciencesPo, points out, some of the same people pledging donations to Notre Dame were also among those who funded Macron’s rise to the presidency. In her recent award-winning book, to be published in English next year as The Price of Democracy, Cagé calculates that 600 wealthy people in France gave between €3m and €4.5m to Macron’s election campaign. In other words, 2% of all donors made up between 40 % and 60% of all En Marche funding. Within a few months, the new president cut taxes on the wealthy, giving his richest donors “a return of nearly 60,000% on their investment”. Just as with Notre Dame – a tiny deposit, a lot of influence and one hell of a payout.
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