BlackRock Becomes a Symbol for Anticapitalist Fervor in France

Addressing the National Assembly, Olivier Marleix, a conservative lawmaker from France’s Les Republicains party, said the proposal would divert money away from France’s social safety net. “You are offering three billion euros to pension funds,” he said. “BlackRock’s business will thrive in France.”

It didn’t help BlackRock’s image among dissidents when Mr. Macron elevated the president of BlackRock France, Jean-François Cirelli, a former civil servant who worked for two previous French presidents, to the rank of officer of the Legion of Honor, France’s highest order of merit, just as strikes over the pension reforms reached a crescendo in early January.

The news lit up social media and triggered a fresh storm of criticism that the American fund was too cozy with Mr. Macron, and would profit from the pension changes.

“BlackRock is simply the dark side of the pension reform,” Olivier Faure, the secretary general of France’s Socialist Party, told French television.

Mr. Cirelli hit back at what he said was “an unfounded and irrational” controversy.

“We are being used for political ends in a conflict that is not ours,” he said, adding that BlackRock “is not a pension fund, does not distribute any retirement savings product, and has no intention of doing so.”

Such statements have not appeased opponents. “BlackRock is an emblem,” said Benoît Martin, the head of the Paris branch of the militant General Confederation of Labor, or C.G.T. union. Mr. Martin said he was among the first wave of protesters to storm BlackRock France’s headquarters in January.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/14/business/france-blackrock-protests.html?emc=rss&partner=rss