Stock prices displayed in the lobby of a building in Tokyo, May 7, 2026. TOMOHIRO OHSUMI/GETTY IMAGES VIA AFP
Once again, TotalEnergies's profits have sparked a heated debate in France. Patrick Pouyanné, the company's chief executive, has been called a "war profiteer" by Marine Tondelier, leader of the Greens. The company must "pay up" by paying additional taxes, demanded radical-left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon.
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TotalEnergies profits soar with war in Iran
Yet the debate obscured a much broader reality. Despite successive geopolitical shocks – the war in Ukraine, Trump's tariff policy, the Strait of Hormuz being blocked, and more – stock markets have reached historic highs. On Thursday, May 7, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq in the United States, as well as the Nikkei index in Japan, all broke new records. The situation was a little less spectacular in Europe, but all indices, including France's CAC40, had reached record levels before the Israeli-American strikes on Iran on February 28, which have led to a moderate decline over the past two months.
