Pierre-Edouard Sterin has told the French Senate he wants to disinherit his five children entirely. The law won’t let him.
French billionaire Pierre-Edouard Sterin appeared before France’s Senate last Thursday and made an argument that most parents would find extraordinary: he wants to disinherit his five children, give his entire fortune to charity, and have French lawmakers change the law so he can actually do it.
“I would like to give my entire estate to philanthropic causes,” he told senators during a public hearing. “I’m in favour of being able to do whatever one wants to do with one’s patrimony.”
The problem is that, under French law, he largely cannot.
France’s civil code enshrines a legal concept known as la réserve héréditaire, a protected inheritance provision that guarantees children a fixed minimum portion of any parent’s estate, regardless of what a will says. With five children, Sterin is legally obligated to
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