French film industry at risk from the far right, say actors and directors | Film

More than 600 cinema figures have said the far right’s growing influence on French cinema production risks turning into a “fascist takeover of the collective imagination”.

One open letter Billionaire Vincent Bolloré’s dominant position in French film production and distribution threatens the industry’s independence, Libération newspaper said in a publication coinciding with the opening of the Cannes film festival.

Actor-director Juliette Binoche, director and photographer Raymond Depardon, and French-Iranian filmmaker Sepideh Farsi were among those who wrote: “By leaving French cinema in the hands of a far-right owner, we risk not only the standardization of films but also a fascist capture of the collective imagination.”

Bolloré, a conservative industrialist, has a powerful media empire including the CNews channel, the Europe 1 radio station and the Sunday newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche, and is close to figures on the far right. Politicians on the left have attacked CNews for giving a platform to reactionary voices they say are helping the rise of the far right. Last month, the Paris prosecutor’s office launched a legal investigation on the channel due to racist comments made against Saint-Denis mayor Bally Bagayoko. The channel denied racism.

Bolloré’s powerful role in the French cultural world is fueling rebellion among creatives ahead of next year’s French presidential election. In an unprecedented move last month, more than 100 authors left the Grasset publishing house in protest at Bolloré’s control of its parent company, Hachette Livre. “We refuse to become hostages in an ideological war aimed at imposing authoritarianism in culture and media,” the authors wrote.

In the film industry, where Bolloré has long dominated private production, cinema insiders said they were emboldened to speak out after the publishing revolt.

Bolloré controls entertainment group Canal+ and its in-house production operation, StudioCanal, Europe’s leading film and television production and distribution group. StudioCanal’s recent films include the Amy Winehouse biopic, Back to Black and Paddington in Peru.

Film industry leaders said they were alarmed by Canal+ buying a stake in UGC, the third-largest network of French cinemas, with the aim of fully owning it by 2028. They said Bolloré would be “in a position to control the entire production chain of films, from their financing to distribution and release on the big and small screen.”

They said that “behind his business suit” Bolloré was promoting a reactionary, far-right project for society “through television stations and publishing houses such as CNews” and that they feared this would extend to the film.

“Effect [his] “The ideological attack on the content of the films has been cautious so far, but we are under no illusions: this will not last,” they wrote, calling on the wider film industry to “build a movement” to defend independence.

Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally (RN) is gaining strong votes as next spring’s presidential election approaches and there is uncertainty about the scale of her party’s proposed funding cuts to the arts.

RN MPs have questioned the model of public financing and tax breaks that support the film industry through the Center National du Cinéma (CNC), a government agency that supports the production of hundreds of films a year.

Le Pen’s party has also been highly critical of France’s public broadcaster, France Télévisions, which is one of the main financiers of films, dramas and documentaries. RN has said it plans to privatize the state broadcaster if it comes to power. A report by an RN MP last week called for sweeping cuts to public broadcasting, including entertainment budgets.

The protest letter stated that Bolloré could take advantage of his dominant position to influence the film’s content.

“The unprecedented concentration of the financial chain in the hands of Vincent Bolloré gives him complete freedom of action when the time comes,” the letter said. “We can’t say we don’t know. Disbanding the CNC and the public broadcaster is part of the RN’s programme. Do we want to risk that tomorrow the only thing still funded will be propaganda films that serve an ideology?”

Bolloré, a Breton industrialist, was once described by former education minister Pap Ndiaye as “very close to the most radical far right”. At a senate hearing in 2022, Bolloré rejected political or ideological interventionism, saying his interest in buying media was purely financial and about promoting the French soft power of his cultural empire.

Bolloré’s group did not comment on the letter from the film figures. After writers revolted against the publishing business last month, Bolloré wrote in Le Journal du Dimanche that those quitting were “a small caste who consider themselves superior to everyone else.” “As for the attacks on my ‘ideology’, I am a Christian democrat,” he said.