LVMH's Bernard Arnault openly in favour of Emmanuel Macron

Bernard Arnault, the CEO and majority shareholder of luxury group LVMH, stated in an interview published by Le Figaro on Wednesday that French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron will allow "for more jobs to be created in France."

"In the first part of the five-year [presidential term] that is about to end, corporations were ostracised from society. But the majority of our leaders have finally realised that the only way of fighting unemployment is to boost job-creation in private industry, and not creating more jobs in the public sector," said the French businessman, ranked by Forbes as the richest individual in France and the eleventh worldwide.

"The prospective new President shares this vision: Emmanuel Macron will allow for more jobs to be created, for more investment and more growth in France," said Bernard Arnault in the interview.

The boss of world luxury number one LVMH (a group that owns some 70 brands, including Louis Vuitton, Guerlain, Hennessy and Sephora) also said he has waited for the result of the French presidential election's first round before announcing the acquisition of the prestigious Christian Dior label, which was revealed on Tuesday.

"I had no doubts that Macron would get past the first round. But after the recent US elections and the UK's Brexit referendum results, one could never trust forecasts and opinion polls. I preferred to wait and be sure that we avoided a second round featuring extremists only, something which would have been catastrophic for France," said Bernard Arnault.

"LVMH represents France worldwide. This is part of the reason for our success," said Arnault, underlining that "LVMH produces more than 3,000 new jobs a year in France."