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Yahoo
11-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
The tech billionaire fighting France's ‘woke insanity' with a spreadsheet
Marine Le Pen, the banned hard-Right leader of France's National Rally, ranks 7 out of 10. So does Jordan Bardella, her deputy with designs on replacing her in the presidential elections. The scores are not from some new poll or bookies odds, but the curious rankings recorded in the private spreadsheet of a billionaire planning to restore 'France's grandeur' by propelling the radical Right to power. Pierre-Édouard Stérin, 51, was until recently, a little-known tech investor and devout Catholic. He is now at the heart of a €150 million (£127 million) project to form a new French political elite to fight 'woke insanity' – a fight that exploded into the public eye this week. Mr Stérin is a self-diagnosed autist and keeps an Excel sheet ranking everyone he meets on a scale of 1 to 10. This includes politicians but also his wife and mother of their five children. 'I had to rationalise my love at first sight to know if she was really the one,' he told Le Figaro, which admitted his 'combination of efficiency and frankness is disconcerting'. According to his spreadsheet, Ms Le Pen and Mr Bardella were both seen as 'mediocre'. Few fared better as Mr Stérin has made it clear he is underwhelmed by French politics, which he believes should be run like a business. After making a fortune selling gift vouchers, the self-made man branched out into a number of sectors from tech to health and his investment firm, Otium Capital, has assets of around €1.6 billion. But now he says he has a far more urgent calling, namely to 'save' his country and 'become a saint' via myriad projects, most of which promote 'liberal conservatism' – a mix of economic libertarianism and social conservatism. That saw him launch a charitable organisation called The Common Good Fund but also Périclès, whose aim is to help a like-minded Right-winger take on 'the successful exercise of power at the earliest opportunity'. François Durvye, Mr Stérin's right-hand man who runs Otium Capital, is a close advisor to Ms Le Pen and Mr Bardella on economic matters and is working on her 2027 presidential platform. He was at Jean-Marie Le Pen's funeral in January and in 2023 he convinced Mr Stérin to co-invest €2.5 million to buy Ms Le Pen's father's family house in one of Paris' richest suburbs. However, Mr Stérin told Le Point: 'Immigration aside, I have few beliefs in common with the National Rally'. Ms Le Pen is a divorcée with liberal views on abortion, which the billionaire staunchly opposes. He prefers Mr Bardella's more liberal economic views but reportedly doesn't think the 29-year-old is ready to run the country. He has approached Éric Ciotti, the former president of Les Républicains, who split from his party in a high-profile public feud last year to form an alliance with Ms Le Pen, but his new darling is reportedly Bruno Retailleau, the hardline interior minister. The social conservative is currently fighting a two-man contest to lead his Republicans party against Laurent Wauquiez, the party's parliamentary chief, which will be decided at a party conference on May 17 and 18. Both candidates scored nine out of ten on the Stérin Excel sheet. A source who knows Mr Stérin well said: 'I think if he had to join a political party, I think he would go for a Bruno Retailleau. That's kind of his thing. 'But as he's not a politician, he doesn't want to lock himself into any one party,' he told The Telegraph. Stérin sentiment scaled new heights among Ms Le Pen's loyalists this week after it transpired she had been omitted from a vast Ifop/Hexagone poll on voter intentions for the 2027 presidential election. It was commissioned by a think tank sponsored by the billionaire. Hexagone said it had not included Ms Le Pen as the poll was conducted after she was banned from running for elected office in a corruption case. She has since appealed the verdict. Furious, Le Pen lieutenant Jean-Pierre Tanguy said he had complained bitterly about the 'vile manoeuvre' to 'weaken the national camp' to Hexagone, which scrambled to organise a second, smaller poll with her name on it. The results are favourable to both National Rally leaders but suggest Mr Bardella is the only one currently capable of clinching the presidency against his most popular current Right-wing opponent, Edouard Philippe. 'Their aim is to stab Marine Le Pen, then weaken Jordan Bardella, to propel Retailleau,' Mr Tanguy told Le Monde. Paul Cébille, the Hexagone chief editor, denied any such plot, telling The Telegraph that if anything, the poll was more flattering for National Rally than Mr Retailleau. Controversially, Mr Stérin last month turned down a request by French lawmakers to testify in front of a parliamentary committee about election operations, after questions were raised about his project's compatibility with campaign finance rules. Mr Rérolle, the Périclès boss, was finally quizzed this week and insisted it abided by French law while Mr Stérin will follow on May 14. Speaking to The Telegraph, Jean-Baptiste Doat, spokesman for Mr Retailleau, said there was a lot of 'fantasy' over Mr Stérin's supposed influence. 'Unlike in the United States, in France, a billionaire can't finance a political party or an electoral campaign beyond a limit of €7,500 per year per person.' A company cannot finance a party or a candidate. 'In reality, what he's doing isn't very different from what Pierre Bergé (Yves-Saint Laurent's business partner) did on the Left funding think tanks back in the day. 'What's new is for the Right to do it; with Bolloré in the media and Stérin, who has a slightly more complex strategy in the sense that he's trying to invest in a lot of very different things that have more or less to do with politics.' He was referring to tycoon Vincent Bolloré, another traditionalist Catholic billionaire seeking to swing the political landscape to the Right, whose media empire includes Canal Plus and rolling news TV channel CNews, now the country's most watched news service. A source from Mr Stérin's entourage said: 'Speaking as someone who knows him personally, I can tell you he's far from being far-Right.' 'But he doesn't necessarily have political reflexes. The problem is that he doesn't care about being caricatured. And sometimes he says things that can be offensive. He's a very reactionary guy.' 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Telegraph
11-05-2025
- Politics
- Telegraph
The tech billionaire fighting France's ‘woke insanity' with a spreadsheet
Marine Le Pen, the banned hard-Right leader of France's National Rally, ranks 7 out of 10. So does Jordan Bardella, her deputy with designs on replacing her in the presidential elections. The scores are not from some new poll or bookies odds, but the curious rankings recorded in the private spreadsheet of a billionaire planning to restore 'France's grandeur' by propelling the radical Right to power. Pierre-Édouard Stérin, 51, was until recently, a little-known tech investor and devout Catholic. He is now at the heart of a €150 million (£127 million) project to form a new French political elite to fight 'woke insanity' – a fight that exploded into the public eye this week. Mr Stérin is a self-diagnosed autist and keeps an Excel sheet ranking everyone he meets on a scale of 1 to 10. This includes politicians but also his wife and mother of their five children. 'I had to rationalise my love at first sight to know if she was really the one,' he told Le Figaro, which admitted his 'combination of efficiency and frankness is disconcerting'. According to his spreadsheet, Ms Le Pen and Mr Bardella were both seen as 'mediocre'. Few fared better as Mr Stérin has made it clear he is underwhelmed by French politics, which he believes should be run like a business. After making a fortune selling gift vouchers, the self-made man branched out into a number of sectors from tech to health and his investment firm, Otium Capital, has assets of around €1.6 billion. But now he says he has a far more urgent calling, namely to 'save' his country and 'become a saint' via myriad projects, most of which promote 'liberal conservatism' – a mix of economic libertarianism and social conservatism. That saw him launch a charitable organisation called The Common Good Fund but also Périclès, whose aim is to help a like-minded Right-winger take on 'the successful exercise of power at the earliest opportunity'. Staunchly opposes abortion François Durvye, Mr Stérin's right-hand man who runs Otium Capital, is a close advisor to Ms Le Pen and Mr Bardella on economic matters and is working on her 2027 presidential platform. He was at Jean-Marie Le Pen's funeral in January and in 2023 he convinced Mr Stérin to co-invest €2.5 million to buy Ms Le Pen's father's family house in one of Paris' richest suburbs. However, Mr Stérin told Le Point: 'Immigration aside, I have few beliefs in common with the National Rally'. Ms Le Pen is a divorcée with liberal views on abortion, which the billionaire staunchly opposes. He prefers Mr Bardella's more liberal economic views but reportedly doesn't think the 29-year-old is ready to run the country. He has approached Éric Ciotti, the former president of Les Républicains, who split from his party in a high-profile public feud last year to form an alliance with Ms Le Pen, but his new darling is reportedly Bruno Retailleau, the hardline interior minister. The social conservative is currently fighting a two-man contest to lead his Republicans party against Laurent Wauquiez, the party's parliamentary chief, which will be decided at a party conference on May 17 and 18. Both candidates scored nine out of ten on the Stérin Excel sheet. A source who knows Mr Stérin well said: 'I think if he had to join a political party, I think he would go for a Bruno Retailleau. That's kind of his thing. 'But as he's not a politician, he doesn't want to lock himself into any one party,' he told The Telegraph. Stérin sentiment scaled new heights among Ms Le Pen's loyalists this week after it transpired she had been omitted from a vast Ifop/Hexagone poll on voter intentions for the 2027 presidential election. It was commissioned by a think tank sponsored by the billionaire. Hexagone said it had not included Ms Le Pen as the poll was conducted after she was banned from running for elected office in a corruption case. She has since appealed the verdict. Furious, Le Pen lieutenant Jean-Pierre Tanguy said he had complained bitterly about the 'vile manoeuvre' to 'weaken the national camp' to Hexagone, which scrambled to organise a second, smaller poll with her name on it. The results are favourable to both National Rally leaders but suggest Mr Bardella is the only one currently capable of clinching the presidency against his most popular current Right-wing opponent, Edouard Philippe. 'Their aim is to stab Marine Le Pen, then weaken Jordan Bardella, to propel Retailleau,' Mr Tanguy told Le Monde. Paul Cébille, the Hexagone chief editor, denied any such plot, telling The Telegraph that if anything, the poll was more flattering for National Rally than Mr Retailleau. Campaign finance rules Controversially, Mr Stérin last month turned down a request by French lawmakers to testify in front of a parliamentary committee about election operations, after questions were raised about his project's compatibility with campaign finance rules. Mr Rérolle, the Périclès boss, was finally quizzed this week and insisted it abided by French law while Mr Stérin will follow on May 14. Speaking to The Telegraph, Jean-Baptiste Doat, spokesman for Mr Retailleau, said there was a lot of 'fantasy' over Mr Stérin's supposed influence. 'Unlike in the United States, in France, a billionaire can't finance a political party or an electoral campaign beyond a limit of €7,500 per year per person.' A company cannot finance a party or a candidate. 'In reality, what he's doing isn't very different from what Pierre Bergé (Yves-Saint Laurent's business partner) did on the Left funding think tanks back in the day. 'What's new is for the Right to do it; with Bolloré in the media and Stérin, who has a slightly more complex strategy in the sense that he's trying to invest in a lot of very different things that have more or less to do with politics.' He was referring to tycoon Vincent Bolloré, another traditionalist Catholic billionaire seeking to swing the political landscape to the Right, whose media empire includes Canal Plus and rolling news TV channel CNews, now the country's most watched news service. A source from Mr Stérin's entourage said: 'Speaking as someone who knows him personally, I can tell you he's far from being far-Right.' 'But he doesn't necessarily have political reflexes. The problem is that he doesn't care about being caricatured. And sometimes he says things that can be offensive. He's a very reactionary guy.'
Bloomberg
29-04-2025
- Business
- Bloomberg
Billionaire Aspires to Sainthood and Right-Wing Future for France
Billionaire Pierre-Edouard Sterin has a clear-eyed view of his life goals ahead: turbocharge his fortune, give it all away and remodel France's political landscape. Then, to cap it all, achieve sainthood in death. The 51-year-old French tax exile is betting on ambitious growth at his private equity-driven investment firm Otium Capital to propel him toward his three secular goals. While funneling cash into philanthropic ventures from education to culture, he's also courted controversy at home with a deeply conservative project aimed at boosting French right-wing parties.
