Editorial earthquake in France as a consequence of accusations of right-wing of the historic Grasset | Culture | EUROtoday

A silent seismic motion had been subjecting the French publishing world to small shocks for years. The vibrations got here from the media empire of Vivendi, owned by tycoon Vincent Bolloré, who has deployed an outpost on the planet of the nation’s media. But the accusations of printing an ideological shift to the suitable in previous newspapers now extends to the publishing world, the place Hachette – owned by the identical firm – already took that path with the Fayard publishing home a couple of years in the past and now threatens to take action in Grasset, whose basic director and historic editor, Olivier Nora, has been fired after 26 years. At daybreak on Thursday, 130 authors from the publishing home, together with heavyweights resembling Bernard Henri-Levy, Virginie Despentes, Sorj Chalandon, Frédéric Beigbeder and Vanessa Springora, introduced that they have been leaving the home. A historic motion that plunges the publishing world into an unprecedented ideological storm. “We will not sign our next contract with them,” they mentioned.

Never had such an essential a part of the catalog of a French writer been deserted en masse for a political challenge. Or administration, as you see it. Authors like Bernard-Henri Lévy, who had a e book virtually completed and was as a consequence of publish it in October, will surrender doing so with Grasset. The signatories emphasize of their assertion: “Once again, Vincent Bolloré says […]: ‘I’m at home and I do what I want’, despising those who publish, those who accompany, edit, correct, manufacture, disseminate and distribute our books. And also despising those who read us.” The authors point out in the document that they reject “being hostages to an ideological war to impose authoritarianism throughout culture and the media.”

The Vivendi group – owner of 11.79% of shares in Prisa, publisher of EL PAÍS – made the decision to fire Nora last Wednesday. He will be replaced by Jean-Christophe Thiery, President and CEO of Louis Hachette Group. Nora preferred not to respond to this newspaper about her departure, the reasons for which have not yet been clarified.

The version indicated by several consulted authors was written by The New Obs and it would be a request made by Arnaud Lagardère, president of Hachette Livre, on April 11, for Olivier Nora to accept in his catalog a work signed by Nicolas Diat, editor at Fayard of the writer and polemicist Philippe de Villiers or Jordan Bardella (president of the National Regrouping). The subject of the dispute is titled Rome, object of lovea travel story that was supposed to be published in Fayard in March 2023, but that ultimately never appeared, and ended up on Nora’s table. He would have refused to publish the work in Grasset, which would have precipitated his downfall. The publisher’s spokesperson has declined this newspaper’s request to offer its version.

The decision, in any case, is part of a long process of media transformation that Vivendi has been adding to its conglomerate in recent years with the acquisition of the Lagardère group, such as Sunday newspaper. Accused of promoting far-right ideology in France [la Redacción de dominical estuvo más de un mes en huelga]Bolloré stated in an appearance in the Senate in 2022 that the interest of his group “is not ideological”, however “purely economic”, and outlined himself as “Christian Democrat”.

One of the accelerators of this political/cultural soap opera was the hiring of the writer Boualem Sansal by Grasset. The author, Goncourt Prize winner and imprisoned in Algeria for a year for his political ideas, left Gallimard, his historic publishing house, a month ago for unclear reasons that pointed to ideological discrepancies. The traumatic breakup – after his release, the writer was living in Antoine Gallimard’s private home for several months – led to his unexpected signing for Grasset. In fact, as he explained The Worldcame to print his new book, now for the new publisher, from Gallimard’s house without having informed him of his departure.

Sansal, however, had already become one of the new lighthouses of the extreme right for his ideas against the supposed Islamization of France and had paraded on the sets and covers of some media such as the Sunday Newspaper o Current Valuesowned by Vivendi. Its incorporation into the Grasset catalog generated the first friction with Nora and raised the eyebrows of some authors.

The story is not new. The business group has already transformed the historic Fayard into a publishing house that promotes leaders and figures of the right or extreme right such as Jordan Bardella or Éric Zemmour, Nicolas Sarkozy, Philippe de Villiers or the far-right and reactionary cardinal, Robert Sarah. On that occasion, Sophie de Closets was the editor fired to begin the change. “It is the signal of a really disturbing political and ideological assault in France. What is occurring now’s that they’re historic publishers of greater than 100 years with a powerful and very various heritage catalogue, publishers that welcome authors of various sensibilities, literary, political and social. Fayard has turn out to be a home of a single shade, we’ll see what occurs with Grasset, and clearly within the medium and long run it is going to be an impoverishment. We have by no means seen historic publishers tilt on this means,” he points out. phone.

A new exodus of authors is also announced in Fayard after about 40 left after the dismissal of Closets in 2022. Now 25 academics – historians, but also sociologists, anthropologists or philosophers -, all of them authors from the house, seek to recover their rights, as are also proposed by the 130 signatories of the statement against the dismissal of Nora in Grasset. Technically, however, it is extremely complicated.

At the first meeting of the group of Grasset authors, as explained by the newspaper The Worldthe first steps were taken for a “class action”, a judicial procedure in which everyone would sue jointly to recover their rights. “We are not looking for our concepts, our work, to be their property. Today we’ve got one thing in widespread: we refuse to be hostages to an ideological battle that seeks to impose authoritarianism all through tradition and the media. We are absolutely in solidarity with the groups, the authors who can’t but converse out,” they are saying within the assertion.