LVMH surpassed in Paris barely three months ago the 400,000 million euros in market capitalization, thus becoming the first European company to cross this threshold. Bernard Arnault became one of the richest men in the world, and the richest in France.
Today the headquarters of his conglomerate LVMH lived through one of the most tense and distressing moments in its history when a multitude of striking workers invaded the headquarters in Paris in protest of the pension reform.
The attack on the LVMH headquarters in Paris
Last week, SUD-Rail and CGT activists had already invaded a building in the 2nd district of Paris where the offices of BlackRock, the largest asset manager in the world, are located, and today it was the turn of the headquarters of the richest man in France.
According to an AFP journalist, “a group of workers on strike were demonstrating and briefly invaded the Parisian headquarters of luxury giant LVMH with smoke bombs and whistles”.
Although it all began in an interprofessional general assembly at the Gare de Lyon from which more than 400 strikers left to 22 avenue Montaigne, near the Champs-Élysées, headquarters of the luxury company LVMH. They did not enter the nearby store and many of the protesters called not to commit these acts, but a few slipped into the entrance hall shouting “the street is ours” with red smoke bombs in their hands.
They were only inside for a few minutes and came out again after putting up stickers in the LVMH hall, and they resumed their slogans such as “there is money in the pockets of businessmen” or “anti, anti, anti-capitalist”.
They have been mobilizing for three months, the most important movement since 1968. “If you’re looking for money to finance pensions, take it out of the pockets of billionaires starting with Bernard Arnault”, said Fabien Villedieu, delegate of the Sud Rail union, on BFMTV.
Photos | Twitter @ClementLanot and Flickr (Martti Kuusanmäki)
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