Canal+ chief blacklists 600 film figures who signed petition against Bolloré

The head of France’s largest film producer, Canal+, announced the company will cease working with hundreds of cinema figures who signed a petition expressing concern over the growing influence of rightwing billionaire owner Vincent Bolloré.

The open letter, published this week to coincide with the Cannes Film Festival opening, gathered more than 600 signatories, including actor-director Juliette Binoche, director and photographer Raymond Depardon, French-Iranian filmmaker Sepideh Farsi, and Arthur Harari, co-writer of the Oscar-winning Anatomy of a Fall, whose film The Unknown premieres in Cannes’ main competition.

They argued that “leaving French cinema in the hands of a far-right owner” risked “not only the standardisation of films, but a fascist takeover of the collective imagination.”

Bolloré, a conservative industrialist, controls a powerful media empire including Canal+ and its in-house production arm StudioCanal, Europe’s leading film and television production and distribution group. StudioCanal’s recent releases include the Amy Winehouse biopic Back to Black and Paddington in Peru.

His holdings also encompass the news channel CNews, radio station Europe 1, and the Sunday newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche.

Speaking in Cannes on Sunday, Canal+ chief executive Maxime Saada called the petition “an injustice toward the Canal+ teams, who are committed to defending the independence of Canal+ and the full diversity of its choices.”

He added: “I will no longer work with and I no longer want Canal to work with the people who signed that petition.”

In the open letter, film industry figures expressed alarm that Canal+ had taken a stake in UGC, the third-largest French cinema network, with plans for full ownership by 2028. They warned Bolloré would be “in the position of controlling the entire fabrication chain of films from their financing to their distribution and their release on the big and small screen.”

They said that “behind his business suit,” Bolloré was promoting a reactionary, far-right societal project “through his TV stations like CNews and his publishing houses,” and feared this could extend to film.

“The influence of [his] ideological offensive on the content of films has so far been discreet, but we are under no illusion: this won’t last,” they wrote.

The tumult mirrors a similar upheaval in publishing. Last month, in an unprecedented move, more than 100 writers quit the publishing house Grasset to protest Bolloré’s control of its parent company, Hachette. “We refuse to be hostages in an ideological war that seeks to impose authoritarianism everywhere in culture and the media,” the authors stated.

Reflecting Bolloré’s divisive reputation, the Canal+ logo was booed at some Cannes screenings this year, including for the opening film, The Electric Kiss.

During a 2022 Senate hearing, Bolloré denied political or ideological interventionism, asserting his interest in media acquisitions was purely financial and his cultural empire aimed to promote French soft power.

After the authors’ revolt last month, Bolloré wrote in Le Journal du Dimanche that the departing writers were “a tiny caste who think themselves above everyone else.” He added: “As for the attacks concerning my ‘ideology,’ I’m a Christian democrat.”