France has 4.5 million 'rich' people, report says (2024)

Who is rich in France? Modesty often prevents people from admitting it for themselves; it is always someone else, someone who earns more. According to the Observatoire des Inégalités (an independent organization specializing in studying inequalities), which on June 1, 2022, two years after the first edition, published its new report on "The Rich in France," France has 4.5 million of them, corresponding to 7.1% of the population.

"The affluent public is rarely studied," said Louis Maurin, founder and leader of this association. "There is a poverty line, with indicators of material deprivation: Why doesn't INSEE publish an affluence or wealth threshold with indicators of privileged living conditions, as exists in Germany?" The Observatoire des Inégalités has therefore created its own income threshold, at twice the median wage, or 3,673 euros per month (including benefits, and with taxes deducted) for a single adult, 5,511 euros for two adults and 7,713 euros for a family with two children under 14 years of age, according to its 2022 scale based on 2019 income.

The threshold of 3,673 euros chosen by the Observatoire des Inégalités may seem low, more comfortable than truly rich, but the cutoff for the highest-earning 10% is actually lower, at 3,328 euros per month; for the richest 5%, it is 4,156 euros; for the 1% (i.e., 630,000 people), 7,180 euros; 17,538 euros for the 0.1%; and 54,497 euros per month for the 0.01%. By comparison, 7.3% of Germans live on 4,052 euros per month or more, for a single person, which is close.

An 'imperfect tool'

"The 'income threshold' tool is imperfect and does not, for example, take housing into account, just as the poverty threshold does not," said Mr. Maurin. "The situation of a homeowner who has already repaid his or her mortgage has nothing in common with that of a tenant paying high rent or a young person in debt." To define affluence, he believes, "we would have to enrich this notion of a threshold with indicators of living conditions, such as owning a second home, going on vacation abroad, or employing staff, just as the poverty line already comes with a list of material deprivations such as not going on vacation, having to skip meals or do without medical care."

Moreover, the 7.1% proportion of the population that is well off is in decline, according to the calculations of Pierre Madec, economist at the Observatoire Français des Conjonctures Economiques (French Monitor of Economic Conditions). It was 8.6% in 2010, suggesting that 745,000 "rich people" have evaporated. "For them, the most prosperous period seems to be over," said Anne Brunner, director of studies at the Observatoire des Inégalités. "The standard of living of the richest 10% of people increased almost without interruption between 1998 and 2008, with an average annual gain of 13,000 euros over the period," corresponding to a 27% increase in their income, much higher than that of the middle and working classes. Then, the financial crisis of 2008 interrupted this golden age. In 2019, the richest 10% had the same standard of living as in 2009.

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