{"id":805652,"date":"2026-05-18T18:29:14","date_gmt":"2026-05-18T18:29:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/805652\/"},"modified":"2026-05-18T18:29:14","modified_gmt":"2026-05-18T18:29:14","slug":"cannes-off-screen-drama-canal-bollore-and-french-cinema-reckoning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/805652\/","title":{"rendered":"Cannes’ Off-Screen Drama: Canal+, Bollor\u00e9 and French Cinema Reckoning"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tAt this year\u2019s Cannes Film Festival, the biggest controversy isn\u2019t tied to a polarizing film or a political speech at a press conference. It\u2019s about Canal+<\/a> and the increasingly fraught question of whether France\u2019s most powerful movie financier can remain insulated from the conservative political stance of its billionaire shareholder, Vincent Bollor\u00e9.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe debate erupted after roughly 600 film industry professionals, including Juliette Binoche<\/a> and Arthur Harari (whose film \u201cThe Unknown\u201d starring L\u00e9a Seydoux premieres today at Cannes) signed a petition criticizing Bollor\u00e9\u2019s growing influence over French media and culture, calling out Canal+\u2018s acquisition of a 34% stake in theater chain UGC and raising concerns over a rightward shift of the group\u2019s editorial line in the run up to the presidential election in 2027, where the far right party Rassemblement National is a leading contender. Amplifying concerns over Bollor\u00e9\u2019s ideological agenda is the presence of CNews, France\u2019s equivalent to Fox News which has, over the years, given a mainstream platform to reactionary, far right voices, within Canal+ Group. It was the country\u2019s most watched news channel until April.
Speaking on Sunday at Canal+\u2019s annual producers luncheon in Cannes, Canal+ chairman Maxime Saada<\/a> stunned the crowd when he said that he no longer wanted the company to work with signatories of the petition.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAs a result, I will no longer work \u2014 I no longer want Canal to work \u2014 with the people who signed this petition,\u201d Saada said, calling it an \u201cinjustice\u201d toward Canal\u2019s commissioning and acquisition teams. \u201cIf people call Canal staff crypto-fascists, I don\u2019t want to work with people who call me a crypto-fascist. I\u2019m sorry, but for me, that\u2019s where the line is.\u201d Saada was referring to Harari\u2019s recent comment as part of an interview in Lib\u00e9ration newspaper after it ran the petition called Zapper Bollor\u00e9 (Switch-Off Bollor\u00e9).<\/p>\n

\n\tThe company, which is behind six movies at Cannes \u2014 notably Quentin Dupieux\u2019s \u201cFull Phil\u201d starring Kristen Stewart and Woody Harrelson, and Jeanne Herry\u2019s \u201cGarance\u201d starring Ad\u00e8le Exarchopoulos \u2014 has been booed and whistled at Cannes screenings whenever the Canal+ logo appears onscreen.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn the last 24 hours since Saada\u2019s stark declaration at Cannes, a number of signatories including Binoche and Jean-Pascal Zadi are rumored to have reached out to the group. Despite the \u201cblack list\u201d threat, an industry source says the group won\u2019t change its editorial policy and won\u2019t \u201ctrack down\u201d the 600+ signatories, many of whom are crew members and lesser known actors and producers, with the exception of a handful of filmmakers, notably those whose debut features were funded exclusively by Canal+.<\/p>\n

\n\tDuring his speech on Sunday, Saada vigorously defended Canal+\u2018s editorial independence and reminded the audience that the pay TV group split from Vivendi (which owns several right-wing media outlets) 18 months ago and was listed at the London stock exchange. Bollor\u00e9\u2019s banner, meanwhile, is Canal+ Group\u2019s largest shareholder with a 30% stake. While he officially retired as CEO in 2022,\u00a0it\u2019s well known that Bollor\u00e9 occasionally attends green-lighting committees at Canal+ Group, although his influence over decisions has seldom been proven apart from the notorious case of Fran\u00e7ois Ozon\u2019s \u201cBy the Grace of God\u201d which wasn\u2019t bought by the channel.<\/p>\n

\n\tSaada said he was \u201ctired of explaining that Canal supports all kinds of cinema, all of its diversity,\u201d citing films with left-leaning themes, such as Boris Lojkine\u2019s \u201cSouleymane\u2019s Story\u201d about a Guinean delivery biker in Paris who is seeking asylum, and Dominik Moll\u2019s \u201cCase 137\u201d which is set against the backdrop of the yellow vest protests in France.<\/p>\n

\n\tSpeaking of the group\u2019s role as the biggest backer of French film production, he added that \u201cevery year we show dozens of films that wouldn\u2019t exist without Canal and that represents the full diversity of cinema.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe executive also used the high-profile gathering at the Martinez Hotel to reaffirm Canal+\u2018s long-term commitment to French cinema and the country\u2019s theatrical model as negotiations loom over the renewal of the broadcaster\u2019s agreement with film guilds to invest in French and European films. Under its latest three-year agreement, Canal+ pledged to invest \u20ac480 million across three years until the end of 2027 \u2014 \u20ac160 million less than during the previous term. The next round of negotiations for a new pact has already begun and will likely see the banner ramp up its investment, according to an industry source.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cCanal is meant to invest more,\u201d Saada said. \u201cI want Canal to return to a higher level. I don\u2019t say this as obligations; I say it as necessary investments.\u201d The TV outfit has gone beyond its investment obligations partly because cinema is a key pillar driving subscriptions and the level of their funding determines the timeline of their access to newly released movies. As such, Canal+ is allowed to broadcast movies six months after their theatrical roll-out, compared with 15 months for Netflix. Canal+ Group is also the parent company of Studiocanal, which runs theatrical operations across key markets including France, the U.K., Germany, Spain and Australia\/New Zealand \u2014 and saw the box office for its productions and co-productions triple between 2022 and 2024.<\/p>\n

\n\tAddressing Canal+\u2018s investment in UGC, one of France\u2019s top exhibition chains, Saada sought to downplay suggestions of an imminent takeover while leaving the door open to a future acquisition. \u201cIt\u2019s not a takeover. We did not take control of UGC; we took a 34% stake,\u201d he said, before acknowledging that \u201cit\u2019s possible that we take control of UGC\u201d in 2028. \u201cI won\u2019t hide that on the Canal side we\u2019d like to do it, but it\u2019s by no means done,\u201d he said, describing the investment as \u201cfurther proof of Canal\u2019s attachment to France, to the cultural exception, and to cinema.\u201d He also rejected the idea that the group will look to limit the number of third-party produced films on UGC screens, or amplify the release of movies with a Christian conservative agenda like the ones hailing from Saje Distribution which have appeared in some UGC theaters.<\/p>\n

\n\tBesides CNews, other media outlets that underwent a major editorial overhaul and leadership changes after being bought by Bollor\u00e9 include Europe 1, the radio station which shifted toward more conservative opinion-driven content closely aligned with CNews. In print media, Vivendi, the former parent company of Canal+ Group, controls JDD, France\u2019s only Sunday newspaper whose editorial repositioning drew intense backlash in 2023 following the appointment of Geoffroy Lejeune, formerly editor of the far-right magazine Valeurs Actuelles, triggering a historic newsroom strike lasting around 40 days. Most recently, Bollor\u00e9 sparked uproar in the publishing world after firing Olivier Nora, who was Grasset\u2019s beloved CEO for 26 years, over a fight tied to the release plan for the publication of Algerian author Boualem Sansal\u2019s book, prompting the exit of over 100 authors from Grasset. Nora was replaced with Jean-Christophe Thi\u00e9ry, a close associate of Vincent Bollor\u00e9.<\/p>\n

\n\tTensions between Canal+ and France\u2019s predominantly left-leaning film community are likely to keep mounting in the run-up to the 2027 presidential election, with Rassemblement National polling as a frontrunner and anxieties running high across the cultural sector. So far, Canal+ has been largely spared the editorial overhaul that reshaped CNews, Europe 1 and JDD \u2014 but the open question is what happens beyond 2027, particularly if a far-right government moves to reform France\u2019s cultural financing model. In that sense, the 2028-2030 agreement Saada is currently negotiating with industry guilds could offer a measure of reassurance: a commitment that Canal+ will continue financing French cinema regardless of who wins the \u00c9lys\u00e9e or what cultural policy shifts may follow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At this year\u2019s Cannes Film Festival, the biggest controversy isn\u2019t tied to a polarizing film or a political…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":805653,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[30],"tags":[57827,171,129914,207960,173,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-805652","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-canal","tag-entertainment","tag-juliette-binoche","tag-maxime-saada","tag-tv","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805652","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=805652"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805652\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/805653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=805652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=805652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=805652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}