How French billionaires push the far-right agenda – DW – 06/02/2025 | EUROtoday

On May 20, a  listening to of a French billionaire earlier than a parliamentary enquiry committee was meant to carry the lid on what the committee had earlier referred to as an “outright ecosystem of political conquest.”

The lid, nevertheless, needed to be stored tigth as a result of Pierre-Edouard Sterin did not present up within the National Assembly.

Originally, French lawmakers wished to query the billionaire founding father of Smartbox — an organization that sells expertise presents — on his so-called Pericles venture, by means of which he is to this point invested about €30 million ($34.24 million) in initiatives selling his conservative values.

“Yesterday, Mr Sterin told us he wanted to testify via video link for security reasons,” the committee’s president, Thomas Cazenave, advised reporters in Paris, whereas pointing to an empty chair in a sideroom, the place Sterin was supposed to take a seat.

“I replied that we had taken appropriate measures to protect him, just like for lawmakers who regularly receive threats,” Cazenave — an MP for the federal government coalition Ensemble! – careworn, including that he deplored Sterin’s “stalling technique.”

“It means we won’t be able to verify if Pericles respects French campaign rules,” Cazenave added.

The Pericles venture’s normal director, Arnaud Rerolle, in the meantime, did present up for a listening to every week earlier, saying France’s “economic, social and moral situation is in a dire state.”

“We’re an incubator on the right of the political spectrum for meta-political projects. So far, we have financed less than 15% of the 600 applications we received,” he advised the committee.

Among the initiatives supported by Pericles are far-right journal L’Incorrect and the so-called Observatory for Decolonizationwhich, for instance, denounces what it calls “woke obscurantism” — a catch-all time period used to decry left-wing ideologies, typically centered on the identification politics of minoritis and knowledgeable by educational motion.

However, Sterin shouldn’t be the one billionaire making an attempt to steer French political opinion in the direction of the far proper, notably Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally (RN).

Interference is ‘drawback for democracy’

Rerolle refused to unveil the names of all of the supported initiatives — lower than a 3rd of which are identified. But he stated Pericles did not finance political candidates, which is legally allowed just for political events underneath French marketing campaign financing legal guidelines.

Pierre-Yves Cadalen, an MP for the far-left celebration France Unbowed (LFI) and the committee’s vp, calls Rerolle’s assertion “wishy-washy.”

“Daily newspaper Humanitis published an internal document according to which Pericles aims to help the far right National Rally (RN) win 300 cities in the 2026 municipal elections,” Cadalen advised DW.

During his listening to, Rerolle had confirmed the doc was real, however referred to as it “outdated.”

According to Rerolle, €150 million will probably be spent over a decade to struggle in opposition to islamism, immigration and gender ideology and work in the direction of a victory on the 2027 presidential and parliamentary elections. RN President Jordan Bardella and RN presidential candidate Marine Le Pen are being certified as “people of trust.”

“It’s a problem for democracy when billionaires interfere this much with political life,” Cadalen stated, including that he wasn’t solely speaking about Sterin.

In France, 80% of the day by day information retailers are owned by eleven billionaires, with their TV and radio stations reaching greater than half of the nation’s viewers.

Cadalen thinks that particularly Vincent Bollore — the bulk shareholder of logistics and communication group Bollore — is wielding “enormous affect by means of his media conglomerate, which incorporates TV channel CNews, radio station Europe 1, the weekly JDDplus polling institute CSA.

“Together, they have huge firepower and spread far-right narratives that are then picked up by other media,” stated Cadalen.

Abel Francois, professor for political economic system at Strasbourg University, says that affect by wealth individuaks is “relatively new” to French politics. “Billionaires used to purchase up media to affect politicians, for instance, to be chosen in public tenders. Today, it is about boosting a sure ideology,” Francois advised DW.

In public interviews, Bollore has maintained he has no affect on the content material of his media.

DW’s requests for interviews with each Bollore and the Pericles venture have remained unanswered.

Journalists, researchers and the tradition sector ‘going quiet’

Meanwhile, France’s focus of media possession has far-reaching penalties, says Amaury de Rochegonde, financial journalist at weekly journal Strategies and radio station RFI.

Journalists “self-censor” with regards to reporting about these billionaires as a result of no-one needs to get “on the wrong side of a potential future employer.”

What’s extra, the billionaires are teaming up, Rochegonde advised DW. “Bollore and Sterin are known to have met. Both are pushing for a union of the right, meaning an alliance between the conservative Republicans’ right wing and the RN”, he stated.

Alexis Levrier, for instance, a media historian at northern Reims University, has skilled what it means to rattle the Bollore cage.

“I received thousands of messages with insults and even death threats, including from an arms dealer,” Levrier advised DW in considered one of his first interviews on the difficulty since late February.

Back then, he had advised day by day newspaper L’Opinion that he supported a call by the French media watchdog to revoke the license for C8, considered one of Bollore’s TV stations. The withdrawal got here after C8 was discovered to disregard dozens of formal reprimands, amongst others for sexism and homophobia.

Levrier believes that one other of Bollore’s media retailers, CNews, ought to obtain an identical sanction for unleashing the hate marketing campaign in opposition to him.

“Many fellow researchers don’t dare to speak up against the Bollore empire any more. The cultural sector has also gone quiet, although artists used to be staunch advocates of humanist values,” stated Levrier.

French lawmakers search countermeasures

And but, Bollore and Sterin are exceptions amongst entrepreneurs, says Herve Joly, a historian at nationwide analysis institute CNRS, as a result of hardly any enterprise chief was brazenly supporting the RN.

“In the past, employers haven’t endorsed the far right before it came to power. They tend to back established, conservative parties. Nowadays, entrepreneurs even promote progressive values, such as gender equality and the fight against climate change,” he advised DW.

At the identical time, he warns that this might change if the far proper rose to energy. “In Germany, company bosses cooperated with Hitler after he had taken over and even consolidated his power.”

LFI lawmaker Pierre-Yves Cadalen needs to forestall that with “new regulations against market concentration” in French media.

“Reactionary forces are using these platforms to push for dismantling our rule-of-law just like in the US,” he stated, noting that US President Donald Trump has lengthy been ignoring courtroom rulings in opposition to him, with far-right media retailers corresponding to FoxNews  “cheering him on.”

But Ensemble! MP Eleonore Caroit, additionally a member of the investigative committee, would not suppose that new legal guidelines are wanted.

“We can fight against projects like Pericles by laying them bare,” she advised DW. “I’m sure that’s why Sterin didn’t show up for the hearing.”

The French billionaire now dangers two years in jail and a superb of as much as €7,500.

Edited by: Uwe Hessler