France: the founder of luxury conglomerate LVMH must be held responsible for spying on journalists

The facts are alarming: between 2013 and 2016, the LVMH group, headed by Bernard Arnault, called Bernard Squarcini, then leader of the Central Directorate of Interior Intelligence (DCRI) - the Ministry of the Interior's counter-intelligence agency that eventually became the General Directorate for Internal Security (DGSI) - to spy on the newspaper Fakirvia infiltration, stalking, photography and other means of illegal information gathering. LVMH sought to collect the personal data of Fakir's employees, including its founder François Ruffin - who is now a deputy in the Somme department of France - and obtain a copy of his film, "Merci patron !", which was in the process of being shot. On 13 November, the trial of Bernard Squarcini and nine other defendants began.

Yet the main perpetrator of this sophisticated infiltration operation is missing from the list of defendants, as LVMH signed a settlement agreement with the courts in 2021. Despite LVMH's clear involvement in the surveillance of Fakir, as evidenced by telephone exchanges publishedby the investigative outlet Mediapart in 2019, Bernard Arnault and LVMH's other senior leaders are not implicated in the trial. The Paris public prosecutor considered "associated" with influence peddling and, as such, included them in a judicial public interest agreement (CJIP), which allows legal entities to secure the dismissal of criminal charges in exchange for paying a fine. In 2021, charges against LVMH were dropped after it paid a fine of ten million euros, without any admission of guilt and without prior consultation with Fakir's editorial team.

In effect, this legal situation provides impunity for crimes committed against journalists in France, as RSF highlighted during its testimony. In this case, it not only allows the main perpetrators behind the surveillance of Fakirto avoid accountability but also enables them to buy their innocence. RSF calls for an end to the misuse of the CJIP to circumvent protections for journalists, and the impunity surrounding offences committed against newsrooms and journalists in France.

LVMH's attitude toward journalists is well-known. These methods, which aim to stifle journalism, are part of a pattern of behaviour LVMH displays towards outlets investigating its practices. In 2014, while journalist Tristan Waleckx was investigating Bernard Arnault for the programme "Complément d'enquête" broadcast on the television channel France 2, the luxury group attempted to intimidate the programme's editor and host, Benoît Duquesne.

During the hearing of RSF's Director General Thibaut Bruttin on 20 November, one of the individuals employed by Bernard Squarcini to infiltrate Fakir, Albert Farhat, brandished his RSF membership card, highlighting his past work as a journalist in an attempt to request the organisation's protection. RSF reiterates that membership is not the same as support, and that being an investigative journalist should not be confused with involvement in private intelligence activities for a multinational corporation.