LVMH is suckered and it's a box-office smash in France

‘Where is the tape recorder? I hope this is not being recorded.’ Bernard Arnault was the victim of a sting (AFP)

An unlikely new big-screen genre is filling cinemas in France – the comedy-documentary-thriller.

Merci Patron follows two unemployed textile workers as they successfully “blackmail” France’s wealthiest man, Bernard Arnault, the founder and executive chairman of the world’s biggest luxury goods conglomerate, LVMH.

By an astute double double-cross – organised by a far-left journalist and film maker – they bag €35,000 (£28,000) to save their house and simultaneously make it impossible for Mr Arnault to sue or bring criminal charges.

The film has the convoluted, feelgood plot of The Sting and the in-your-face, faux good humour of the documentaries of US film maker Michael Moore. Despite the mysterious cancellation of a government subsidy and its banishment from the main distribution networks, the low-to-no-budget movie has been packing out French cinemas this month, especially in the provinces. More than 150,000 people have seen the film, mostly drawn to it through word of mouth. Its success means that it will be shown on nine times more screens across France from next week.

Jocelyne and Serge Klur, two unemployed, impoverished 50-something workers from a village near the Belgian border, are the unlikely stars. So, against his will, is the 67-year old Mr Arnault.

More than 150,000 people have seen the film, mostly through word of mouth

LVMH “delocalised” the Klurs’ small suit-making factory from northern France to Poland. When they threatened to cause a stink about the threatened loss of their small house, Mr Arnault and LVMH agreed to help them, so long as they signed a contract to keep the deal quiet.

Much fun follows, involving a video camera hidden in a soft toy cat and a jolly ex- intelligence agent dispatched to negotiate in secret by LVMH. “Where is the tape recorder? I hope this is not being recorded,” he says. In the end, the film maker and the Klurs manoeuvre LVMH into breaking their own confidentiality agreement.

The movie’s theme song has become the ironic battle anthem of workers and students who have demonstrated in recent days against the centre-left government’s proposal to reform France’s hiring-and-firing laws.

The film has, however, also annoyed some people on the hard left. At a launch party in Paris, there were scuffles after a handful of activists accused the director, François Ruffin, of being a self-publicist who had patronised two distressed workers without endangering capitalism.

“You only see that kind of thing in Paris,” said Mr Ruffin, who runs a small left-wing newspaper called Faqir. “It was just two or three pitbulls of the ultra-left. People who are in the same fix as the Klurs come out of the film with tears in their eyes. That is what is important to me.”

Mr Ruffin believes that the film is successful because it plays with two of the most powerful forces in the modern world – public image and the moving image.

He argues that Mr Arnault and LVMH were easily manipulated because they feared that bad publicity would damage their brands. “To tell a story today, to reach people,” he said, “the most effective medium is film.”

LVMH and Mr Arnault have resolutely refused to comment on the movie – even though the billionaire comes out of it reasonably well. He appears image-obsessed and naive rather than brutal or hard-hearted. How many bosses would have agreed to give redundant ex-workers €35,000 to save their house?

All the same, LVMH would like the film to go away. Journalists at two newspapers owned by Mr Arnault say that they have been banned from writing about Merci Patron. There are allegations, but no proof, that LVMH intervened to have the film’s small state subsidy withdrawn.

In fact, the company, if it bothered, has a good riposte to the film’s anti-globalist and anti-capitalist arguments. Although Mr Arnault’s early career as a tycoon was troubled by accusations of asset-stripping, he has built LVMH into the world’s most successful luxury goods company, with brands such as Louis Vuitton, Moët & Chandon, Veuve Clicquot, Hennessy, Guerlain, Christian Dior, Givenchy, Kenzo, Céline and Berluti. It employs more than 120,000 people around the world, including 22,000 in France.

Although much work has been sent abroad – including the Kenzo suits once made by the Klurs’ factory near Valenciennes – LVMH remains an important source of innovation, skilled jobs and apprenticeships for luxury trades in France.

Mr Ruffin does not see things that way. He describes himself as “anti-capitalist, anti-European and anti-free trade” and in favour of “taxes at frontiers, border controls and import quotas”.

Does he fear a legal attack by LVMH to get the Klurs’ money back? “No. Can you imagine what effect it would have on their image, if they did that? They won’t risk it.”