Barack and Michelle Obama didn't show up. No one knows if they were ever really coming, but did it matter? The rumor spread like wildfire among the celebrities invited to the extravagant Louis Vuitton fashion show on the Pont Neuf in Paris on June 20. And everyone believed it. After all, 16 years ago, the brand managed to pull off an advertising campaign starring Mikhail Gorbachev, his hand resting on a Vuitton bag in the back of a car, in front of the Berlin Wall. Can anyone resist the world's biggest luxury group?

A G20 summit couldn't have been better secured: swarms of black sedans with tinted windows lined up on the quays of the Seine (opened up to LVMH for VIP parking), bodyguards with earpieces, dozens of police officers brought in to protect the dazzling guest list of American stars, from Rihanna to Leonardo DiCaprio, who came to admire the debut show by musician-slash-designer Pharrell Williams. The city had zealously cordoned off the entire area, causing monster traffic jams. "I'll have you know that Mr. Arnault creates a lot of jobs," a security guard was heard telling one exasperated local.

In a country like France, being the richest man in the world (or the second, when he alternates with Elon Musk) confers a special status. No one says it that way, but no one disputes it: LVMH CEO Bernard Arnault is held up on par with a head of state. Never before has France occupied the top spot in the rankings of which the American press is so fond. Also unprecedented is the fact that the company is valued at between €400 and €500 billion – more than the national budget. "For the first time in France, where there is nothing above the state, a private individual is more powerful than the king," summed up economist and philosopher Jérôme Batout.

Arnault, indivisible from the group of which he and his family own 48%, is the only non-American to wield such firepower. As such he has become symbolic of an inversion of the balance of power between the political and the commercial, a shift which is underway worldwide. "Large corporations are organizations whose power now exceeds the economic sphere alone," wrote essayist Olivier Basso in his book Politique de la Très Grande Entreprise ("The Big Corporation and its Politics," 2015). "They participate in the creation of the world we live in. In fact, they have become political players."

This is a power without borders, without democratic legitimacy, and by nature, in competition with states. "Bernard Arnault has reached such a level of economic power that he has reversed the balance of power with politics," agreed Gilles Le Gendre, MP for Paris from Emmanual Macron's centrist Renaissance party. "There is no other case like this in French history."

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