France

French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday unveiled an anti-poverty plan that his supporters hope will lose him the reputation of being a president of the rich. As well as measures […]

In a statement issued by the US Department of Justice on Monday, French bank Societe Generale and one of its subsidiaries agreed to pay the penalties to settle the cases. […]

Swiss food group Nestle said on Friday it planned to cut as many as 400 jobs in France in support services and HQ functions, as it sees to cut cost and boost efficiency, confirming a media report.

The Swiss food company announced the plan in a meeting with labour leaders, according to Daniel Loget, secretary of the worker’s consultation committee at Nestle Purina in Paris, and Patrick Fernand, a representative from the CGT union.

Bitcoin’s price has levelled off at around $9,600 on Friday after the cryptocurrency lost almost $2,000 in less than 24 hours over Wednesday and Thursday. Despite the falls, bitcoin is still trading at almost ten times its value at the start of the year.

And according to the Bank of France Governor Francois Villeroy de Galhau, Bitcoin is a speculative asset and people who invest in it do so at their own risk.

HSBC Private Bank, a Swiss unit of banking giant HSBC, has agreed to pay €300 million to avoid going to trial in France for enabling tax fraud, prosecutors said on Tuesday. HSBC was accused last year of helping French clients to hide at least €1.67 billion from the tax authorities, according to a source close to the probe.

Following a couple of weeks of public uproar after the French government said it was going to scrap a wealth tax that applies to personal assets of more than $1.5 million, Emmanuel Macron’s administration will propose a tax on luxury yachts, supercars and precious metals in France’s 2018 budget.

Macron, a former Rothschild banker, has been trying to shake off the label of “president of the rich,” but the September proposal of replacing the tax on high-end assets such as jewellery with just a real estate tax didn’t help his cause.

UBS France’s new 4.5 billion euros wealth management division, La Maison de Gestion, is looking at hiring new staff to grow the business, the company said on Tuesday.

The Swiss bank’s La Maison de Gestion arm was formed from a deal struck in December last year when UBS France agreed to buy the local private banking business of Italy’s Banca Leonardo. The new division was formally launched on Tuesday. With the transaction in France, UBS thus has acquired the access to the circle of super rich individuals and families.

Air France formally launched on Monday its new “Joon” lower-cost airline, which the company hopes will attract a younger clientele and restore some routes to profitability.

Air France said on Monday that Joon would start off by flying to six destinations. Joon is “especially aimed at a young working clientele, the millennials (18- to 35-year-olds), whose lifestyles revolve around digital technology,” Air France said in a statement, without elaborating on what new technology would be deployed.