Depois de Gerard Depardieu, segundo esta notícia do Financial Times, mais executivos de topo franceses se estão a preparar para abandonar o país e a recusar cumprir o seu “dever patriótico” de trabalhar a grande maior parte do ano em prol do bem comum. Aqui fica um excerto.

“New evidence of top French executives leaving the country has emerged as President François Hollande battles a stalling economy and tumbling approval ratings.

Two senior executives at Moët Hennessy, the champagne and cognac arm of the LVMH luxury group, are moving to London from Paris and the head of Dassault Systèmes, the software arm of Dassault Aviation, said some senior managers of his company had left and he was considering following suit. LVMH, headed and controlled by Bernard Arnault – Europe’s richest man – told the Financial Times that the moves by Gilles Hennessy, an LVMH director who is also executive vice-president of commercial at Moët Hennessy, and Christophe Navarre, chief executive of Moët Hennessy and a member of LVMH’s executive committee, were not because of tax reasons. 

But Bernard Charlès, chief executive of Dassault Systèmes, was sharply critical of the high tax policies of Mr Hollande’s Socialist government, telling Le Monde newspaper in an interview: “Residing in France has become a big handicap. Very largely, our hiring of top managers will have to be done elsewhere than in France.”

The news follows Mr Arnault’s own application for Belgian citizenship, leaked last September, which poured fuel on a fiery debate in France about entrepreneurship, patriotism and high taxes.

Figures released on Monday showing a worse-than-expected 1.2 per cent fall in industrial production in January over December underlined the grim outlook facing Mr Hollande, whose approval ratings have fallen this month to as low as 30 per cent. 

The economy went into reverse in the last quarter of 2012, unemployment has hit 10 per cent of the workforce and the government is battling to formulate painful spending cuts as it seeks to contain a budget deficit overshoot this year.“