{"id":803565,"date":"2026-05-17T20:17:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-17T20:17:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/803565\/"},"modified":"2026-05-17T20:17:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-17T20:17:11","slug":"canal-will-blacklist-talents-who-oppose-right-wing-billionaire-owner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/803565\/","title":{"rendered":"Canal+ Will Blacklist Talents Who Oppose Right-Wing Billionaire Owner"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tThe head of Canal+<\/a>, France\u2019s largest film producer, has said the studio will no longer work with hundreds of cinema professionals, who signed a petition<\/a> voicing concern over the growing influence of the studio\u2019s rightwing billionaire owner Vincent Bollor\u00e9.<\/p>\n

\n\tMore than 600 French industry figures, including actors Juliette Binoche, Ad\u00e8le Haenel and Swann Arlaud, and directors Sepideh Farsi and Arthur Harari, signed the open letter, published earlier this week, calling out Bollor\u00e9\u2019s right-wing politics and his expanding control over the French film industry.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cLeaving French cinema in the hands of a far-right owner,\u201d the letter reads, risked \u201cnot only the standardisation of films, but a fascist takeover of the collective imagination.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThrough his media company Vivendi, Bollor\u00e9\u00a0already owns Canal+<\/a>, France\u2019s largest pay-TV company, and its subsidiary Studiocanal, Europe\u2019s leading film production company. Bollor\u00e9\u2019s media empire includes CNews, a popular French news channel that figures on the left have attacked for allegedly giving a platform to far-right voices.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe open letter was sparked by Bollor\u00e9\u2019s plans to take full control of UGC, France\u2019s third-largest cinema chain, something the letter writers equated to a \u201cfascist takeover\u201d of French cinema.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe film industry figures warn that Bollor\u00e9\u2019s expanding media empire puts him \u201cin 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe influence of [his] ideological offensive on the content of films has so far been discreet, but we are under no illusion: this won\u2019t last,\u201d they wrote.<\/p>\n

\n\tSpeaking at the Canal+ producers brunch in Cannes<\/a> on Sunday, Saada called the petition \u201can injustice towards the Canal teams who are committed to defending the independence of Canal+, and in all the diversity of its choices. And as a result, I will no longer work; I no longer wish Canal to work with the people who signed this petition.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSaada said the open letter amounted to calling the Canal+ teams \u201ccryptofascists.\u201d \u201cWell, I don\u2019t want to work with people who call me a cryptofascist,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn a senate hearing in 2022, Bollor\u00e9 denied using his media empire to forward any political or ideological agenda, saying he is only interested in making money and in promoting French soft power abroad.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The head of Canal+, France\u2019s largest film producer, has said the studio will no longer work with hundreds…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":803566,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[30],"tags":[57827,6345,297566,171,1801,207960,173,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-803565","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-canal","tag-cannes","tag-cannes-2026","tag-entertainment","tag-international","tag-maxime-saada","tag-tv","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116591764896352413","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/803565","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=803565"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/803565\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/803566"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=803565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=803565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=803565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}