How many wealthy are there in France? From what income are we considered to belong to this category of the population? Tuesday, an unpublished report from the Observatory of Inequalities deciphers various statistical data, so far little used, and paints a surprising portrait. According to the latter, 8% of the population is thus qualified as "rich". A proportion identical to that of the poor French. To find these figures, the Inequalities Observatory decided on a wealth threshold, like the already existing poverty threshold.
Over a million millionaires
The poverty line is equivalent to half of the median income of French people: 867 euros per month. Based on this assumption, the Inequalities Observatory has determined that a rich person earns about twice as much as the median income (1,750 euros). The "wealth threshold" would therefore be 3,740 euros once taxes paid for a single person, and 7,287 euros per month for a couple with two children. Once this level has been determined, the number of people above this threshold rises to 5 million French people, or 8% of the country's population.
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In this context, only income was mentioned. Taking heritage into account, the wealth threshold retained by the authors of the report amounts to half a million euros: 490,000 euros exactly. About 4,600,000 households reach this stage, and 1,200,000 are even millionaires.
In this report, the disparity of the "rich" is largely pointed out. "Inside this wealth we will find senior executives with a good standard of living, and then colossal sums. We are still, in France, the poor of another. There is after a very heterogeneous distribution of wealth with considerable levels, several million euros per year ", indicates Louis Morin.
The gap is widening
The Observatory of Inequalities observes that, if the number of rich does not change much in France, the gap in their standard of living with the rest of the population has increased in twenty years. And in terms of wealth, the observation is the same: the 10% of the wealthiest French people owned 51% of total household wealth in 1995. Twenty years later, they own 55%.
"We enter the richest 1% from 6,700 euros, at 15,000 euros we are in the richest 0.1%, and at 38,000 euros we are in the 0.01% per month", decrypts Louis Morin . The report illustrates that the wealthiest French, the 1% who have the highest incomes, are the second in Europe, behind the Swiss.
Describe to find the means of solidarity
For the Observatory, the objective of this report is a description of society in order to launch a debate. "We have a problem in France with this word 'rich', the question is not to love or not to love the rich or the poor, but to describe society", recalls Louis Morin, director of the Inequalities Observatory.
The report can also be useful in finding public money that is lacking. "This is one of the bases that allows us to ask ourselves how to redistribute? Our country is in a considerable crisis. Who can today make an effort of solidarity? Is it just a handful of very wealthy that we is it going to overtax? Or is it much wider? The wealthy or even perhaps below. Isn't it everyone's job to contribute to the collective effort according to their abilities? " , wonders Louis Morin.