I am a comedian.
I had two dreams in my life when I was little.
The first one was to become a comedian.
And the second was to get rid of inequality because I thought it unfair
that to become a comedian was a possibility, even a conceivable dream.
while other people less fortunate than me, could even imagine such an idea.
Because as Oscar Wilde once said,
"In a nation, there's a part of the population
that think more about money than the rich
and those are the poor people."
The poor people can't think of anything else.
This is what the curse of being poor is.
The first dream came true. But the second hasn't yet.
I told myself I would find a technique
to eradicate the inequalities: marry a billionaire.
I calculated that if 7 billion people each married one of 1827 billionaires:
on the basis of joint ownership of property,
in only one generation, we would be able to eradicate inequality.
Well, I'm not an expert in probability. I'm better in statistics.
I calculated that today
I had one chance out of 6 of marrying someone who suffered from hunger.
And was not anorexic: malnourished.
One chance in 4 of marrying someone who earned less than $1.25 per day.
A very, very poor person from Asia or Africa.
One chance in 2 of marrying someone who earned less than $2 a day.
In other words, even in Europe, you don't earn much.
And one chance in...
8 millions of marrying a billionaire.
Is there anyone here who earns more than 10 millions euros a year?
One again, a room full of poor people.
(Laughter)
Hey, it's not so bad; we're may be poor, but we're are happy!
So, a billionaire. Let me explain.
Because for poor people, these figures may appear a bit vague.
A billionaire is someone that has 999 million more than 1.
There are only 1826 of them in the world. That's nothing.
That would be animals that would be a preserved species.
(Laughter)
That's that reason we don't have the right to kill them for their fur.
(Laughter)
Or even make sushi out of them.
The wealthiest man in the world is Bill Gates.
The second wealthiest is Carlos Slim Helú.
He owns 15% of Mexico.
He owns the phone companies, hotels, television networks.
As a result, better not play a killer game of Monopoly with him.
Mine, mine...
(Laughter)
And following behind, Warren Buffett.
He's the CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, an investment fund.
He buys shares and sells them.
He hasn't manufactured anything,
hasn't invented anything, he has 50 billions.
I love Warren.
(Laughter)
He never changes his car. He still lives in the same house.
He married the cafe waitress from across the street.
He only traveled one time in his life.
He went to China, and didn't like it.
And his thing is to eat a T-bone steak on Fridays.
He's number 3 of 7 billionaires.
and when he dies, he will leave all his fortune to Bill Gates.
(Laughter)
For his charity. They repaint the schools.
(Laughter)
Hey, but pretty darn well with a paintbrush.
(Laughter)
He's going to give everything back to the poor.
I can't understand that.
He spent his whole life living off the work of the poor.
He didn't pay them much. And he more or less succeeded.
And at the end, what does he tell them? "Surprise, it was only a joke?"
(Laughter)
It was not necessary to exploit people if you didn't want to earn money.
It's like people who catch and release fish for pleasure.
and then release the fish in the water.
Fair-play, noble gesture.
I personally don't think that's a noble gesture.
to humiliate a fish and to pierce its mouth.
Warren impoverishes people just for sport.
(Laughter)
Well you're going to say,"It's a good idea to get rid of inequalities."
But what should you do to marry a billionaire?"
It's very easy. You should study the Forbes' list.
It comes out every year
with the names of billionaires in descending order and with their photos.
Well, I made posters.
George Clooney, he's the best looking, but he's not on the list.
(Laughter)
There''s Hugh Grant.
No, not that one. The other one. That one is a poor guy.
His namesake.
(Laughter)
He's the CEO of Monsanto.
To become a billionaire, you only need to have a good idea.
He had the idea of getting a patent on grains, seeds, apples.
He only had to think about it.
In the Forbes List, there's no actors, football players, no singers.
There is a clown.
Guy, a man from Quebec, the creator of Cirque Du Soleil.
He's number 1006.
Well, that's not bad for a fire-eater.
And he's a real billionaire.
His last vacation, for his birthday, he went to Soyuz.
It's not in Russia. It's higher. In orbit.
You didn't know, but it's uncommon to take a vacation on Earth.
I can't really tell you how to recognize a billionaire in one evening.
There is really no sign.
On the contrary, I can tell you how to recognize a poor person.
If he's wearing brands that you recognize.
The little Ralph Lauren horse, a Rolex, a Porsche, that's a poor guy.
A billionaire has no external sign of being rich. At least not on himself.
Abramovitch, the Russian billionaire. His external sign of being rich's Chelsea.
(Laughter)
The English football club.
Well, I made some notes.
I made you a good one so not to discourage you.
Larry Ellison.
He's the CEO of Oracle and Java on computers.
It's a free thing. Who knows how he did it.
(Laughter)
What "oh" he's good.
Wait, there's still others. You're going to be sorry.
(Laughter)
George Soros. He invented the hedge funds.
And then, he ruined England, the franc.
And at this time, he love the euro.
Pay attention, the best progress of the year is thanks to whom?
Thanks to us: Zara.
Amancio Ortega, fourth richest in the world.
Does anyone speak Spanish?
He just lost his wife.
(Laughter)
That's terrible.
Look out men...
Ta-da!
(Laughter)
It's Jacqueline Mars of Mars.
Of "a Mars and it sets off". It's hers.
She's super nice.
You know who it is?
No?
I'm happy that I'm here to show you the nice ones.
Without me, you would only be good for marriages for love.
(Laughter)
Lakshmi Mittal. He manufactures steel.
His best business is Kazakhstan.
He bought a part of the country, a whole region.
The iron and coal mines, the factories, the electric power plant, the railroads.
As a result, he was given a gift to the people.
(Laughter)
That's normal it's a commercial gesture.
Every year, he goes around the world 10 times with his jet.
Imagine the mileage?
(Laughter)
He must have earned a free trip by now.
On Pluto.
To have discussions with billionaires you have to be able to talk to them.
to know a little about their lives.
In the Forbes list there are billionaires whose jobs we know about:
Ingvar Kamprad, the CEO of Ikea.
We know he builds furniture.
And then, he cuts them down, and he puts them in very small boxes.
Because as a child, he was very poor. He sold matches.
Well, that remained with him.
Then, there are CEOs, that frankly we don't know anything about.
" What does your husband do?" "Algorithms."
"What?" "He invented Google."
It's an algorithm.
One enters a word in a search engine, and thanks to PageRank
a line of code of 2 billion terms with 500 millions variables,
the information goes into the computer wires,
in a data center in the region.
There are server farms.
It's air conditioned because it can't be too hot.
And thanks to an electric signal,
the information is transmitted to your computer via fiber optics.
What's funny is that it takes less than two seconds for a full circuit.
It's instantaneous.
My husband is the 20th richest of 7 billionaires, he's really nice.
But, frankly, when he talks...
(Laughter)
Well, I don't understand a word.
Beware of scams.
In the Forbes list, there are few African billionaires.
Very few African billionaires, they couldn't get it.
But, they try.
For example, in Ethiopia, they're the ones who invented coffee.
Coffee, now that's a great invention.
It's the top traded agricultural product in the world.
The problem is they didn't register it.
(Laughter)
As a result, they don't see color in it.
Where as Nestle is made by the Swiss.
They registered it.
(Laughter)
I don't know why you have to like opera in order to marry a billionaire.
But whatever you do,
you must read the women's supplement of the Financial Times.
It's titled "How to spend it?"
"What am I going to do with that?"
That really exists.
Above all, you have to to learn to speak the lingo,
"Sweetheart? Did you see the keys to the Falcon?"
I have to run an errand.
While I think of it, don't you think that we should trade in the plane?
I don't like flying in last year's model.
It's feels like flying in an old dress.
The last model of the Bombardier: too cutesy, makes you think of a keychain.
60 square meter all in leather.
And you know that it's the only jet
capable of going around the world with only one stopover.
It's an awesome way to to go visit the kids at school."
And I think that 95% of the world population has never been on a plane.
Oh, it's not bad.
It's worth saying the remaining 5% are
the ones who have a blast and who pollute.
But as a result, regarding the poor, they did a cute thing.
In India, near Delhi, they set up decommissioned Boeing plane.
And for 125 rupees, the equivalent of 3 euros,
on weekends, they take their families on a plane ride.
They were their Sunday best saris.
They tear off their tickets.
There's a steward, airline hostesses, a captain.
They are served a drink and tray meals.
They are given safety instructions,
"Ladies and gentlemen, welcome aboard Air Nowhere.
Please fasten your seat belts.
You have to attach the seat belt like this.
You should also know that you manufactured them."
(Laughter)
"In case of depressurization,
well, very unlikely, we have air masks.
I'm not going to give you the life jacket spiel.
That's done for the wealthy, they don't like having no hope.
But frankly, they ought to have put a pair of skis, goggles, and a tuba.
That would have been the same thing."
All the same, except they don't fly.
Well at the end of 2 hours, when they get off the plane,
they are happy anyway.
That's like in Gaza.
There's no zebra in their zoo.
So they paint the donkeys.
They cover them with scotch tape to stay in the lines.
But, they do a hell of a job with a paintbrush.
The billionaires invented an incredible thing. It's a slot machine.
It's quite a good thing that we aren't familiar with
where a bit of money from each person in the whole world quickly disappears.
However, they're the last, and they're hopeful.
"The vacuum cleaner that doesn't lose its power."
That's Dyson, who's a billionaire.
That's it.
Now you know how to marry a billionaire.
How to talk to them, learn to understand and to like them.
I hope that it will be you on the Forbes list next year.
In 2009, at the beginning of the crisis, there were 793.
Today, there are 1,826 billionaires.
I hope that tomorrow, we will be the 7 billionaires on the list.
(Applause)