France, land of inequalities? According to an Insee study, published on Wednesday, half of French households held 92% of the assets at the start of 2021. But when we look in detail, these figures are even crazier: 5% of the richest households have 34% of assets, and 1% of 15%. This share “is stable compared to that of 2018”, notes INSEE.
According to the data analyzed by INSEE, 1% of French households have a net wealth (without the loans contracted) greater than more than 2.072 million euros. The richest 10% have a net worth of more than 633,200 euros. Figures that make you dizzy, while INSEE notes that the heritage of half of French households is above 124,800 euros. It is less than 3,000 euros for the poorest 10%.
“At the beginning of 2021, the gross wealth of households is mainly made up of real estate, the share of which has been stable since 2004”, notes INSEE. It is the main residence that essentially makes up the real estate assets of households: nearly six out of ten French households own it (whether or not they have finished repaying the purchase). They have “an average gross heritage 8.6 times higher than that of tenants and people housed free of charge”, observes INSEE.
The richest have a financial wealth 344 times greater than the poorest
INSEE is also interested in financial assets: this is money deposited in current or investment accounts or in other financial instruments. If “almost all households own them”, there is logically a certain inequality. The poorest 10% have a maximum of 400 euros on hand, while the richest 10% have at least 150,000 euros. It is 344 times more between these two segments of the population.
This is a “logical” statistic also noted by INSEE: we become richer over the course of life, “gross wealth increases continuously until the age of 60, before decreasing slightly”. “Once debt is taken into account, the average net wealth goes from 43,200 euros for households whose reference person is under 30 to 361,400 euros for households of sixty-year-olds, then drops to 343,800 euros for older households”, observes the statistical institute.