The gloves are off.
Maxime Saada, Canal+ Chair and CEO, has hit back at an open letter launched on the opening night of the Cannes Film Festival sounding the alarm over tycoon Vincent Bolloré’s growing control of the French entertainment and media sectors.
The petition titled “Time To Switch-Off Bolloré” was signed by 600 cinema professional including Juliette Binoche, Cannes 2026 Palme d’Or contenders Arthur Harari and Bertrand Mandico as well as directors Yann Gonzalez, Sepideh Farsi and actors Adèle Haenel, Zita Hanrot, Samuel Kircher, Ariane Labed, Anna Mouglalis and Jean-Pascal Zadi among others.
It took aim at the Canal+ Group’s recent acquisition of a 34% stake in French production, distribution and exhibition major UGC, with an option to buy it outright by 2028. The letter warned it marked a new step “in Vincent Bolloré’s expansion strategy”, suggesting it was part of a larger project to “push a right-wing, reactionary agenda” in France.
Saada is reported to have addressed the letter at the Canal+ Group’s annual producers’ lunch on Sunday on the fringes of the Cannes Film Festival.
“I experienced this petition as an 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,” Saada, was quoted by French newswire AFP as well as trade paper Le Film Français as having said in a speech at the lunch.
Saada referred to an interview in Libération in which Palme d’Or contender Harari explained his reason for singing the open letter, even though his films have been financed by Canal+ in the past, in which he referred to Bolloré as a “crypto-fascist”.
“If some go so far as to call Canal+ ‘crypto-fascist’, then I cannot agree to collaborate with them. That’s the line. It is not acceptable that there is no consideration for the work of our teams,” he said.
There is no such this language, however, in the open letter. (Scroll down for full original text of the open letter).
Last Tuesday’s petition comes amid growing concerns within the French media, publishing and entertainment worlds about Vincent Bollore’s growing influence in these spheres via the Bolloré Group. He officially stepped down as chair and CEO of the group in 2022, but is believed to still pull levers behind the scenes.
He has been accused of being behind a shift to the right of the Canal+ Group’s 24-hour news channel CNews (formerly known as i-Télé) and the talk shows of channel C8, in the wake of his taking control of parent company Vivendi in 2014.
The latter channel was sanctioned on a number of occasions by French TV watchdog Arcom for disinformation and regularly criticized for a lack of plurality in it guests. It lost its TNT licence in 2024 as part of a scheduled renewal process.
Canal+ was listed on the London Stock Exchange in 2024, but the Bolloré Group retains around 30% of the stock making it the group’s biggest shareholder.
There are similar concerns at the publishing group Louis Hachette Groupe, created out of the fusion of Lagardère Group and Prisma Media, in which the Bolloré Group is also the biggest shareholder.
Vincent Bolloré is seen as having had a hand in the appointment in 2023 of far-right journalist Geoffroy Lejeune as editor of Sunday newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche, or JDD, as the newspaper’s Lagardère Group parent was in the process of being rolled into Vivendi.
More recently there have been fireworks at publishing house Hachette Livre in France , following the ousting in April of Olivier Nora as CEO of Grasset to be replaced by longtime Bolloré collaborator Jean-Christophe Thiery.
Nora’s sudden firing, after more than 25 years in the role, prompted the departure of 130 of its top authors, including Virginie Despentes, Frédéric Beigbeder, Bernard-Henri Lévy and Vanessa Springora, who accused Bolloré of attacking “editorial independence and creative freedom” in an open letter.
Bolloré responded with a letter in the JDD mocking suggestions he had been behind Nora’s removal, but also criticizing falling profits in recent years, without acknowledging the other headwinds currently facing the publishing world. He said the departed writers had made space for newcomers.
“As for the attacks concerning my ideology, I remind you yet again, that I’m a christian democrat and that the managers at Hachette will continue to publish who they want,” he concluded.
Bolloré’s detractors also point to the move to the right of another Lagardère publishing house, Fayard, since 2023, which has recently published works by Jordan Bardella, president of the far-right National Rally party, and far-right politician and writer Eric Zemmour.
The “Time To Switch-Off Bolloré” open letter received a mixed response from French journalists and film professionals in Cannes, with some suggesting that for now there are no signs of Canal+’s cinema activities heading in a far-right or conservative direction.
The day the letter was published, its pan-European studio arm Studiocanal announced the arrival of singer-songwriter, actress and trans rights activist FKA twigs for the role of Jazz Age star and civil rights activist Josephine Baker in Maïmouna Doucouré’s biopic as it launched sales in Cannes.
The “Time To Switch-Off Bolloré” letter acknowledged this fact but noted that the signatories feared it could happen further down the line.
“His plans go beyond mere business deals: the billionaire makes no secret of his “civilization project.” He is using his television channels such as CNews and his publishing houses to push his far-right, reactionary agenda,” it read.
“So far, his ideological offensive on film content has been discreet. However, we hold no illusions: this will not last. By controlling the entire financial chain, Bolloré has complete freedom to act when the time comes. We won’t be able to say we didn’t see it coming,” it continued.
“The complete dismantling of the CNC is part of the National Rally’s program. Do we want to risk a future in which only propaganda films serving an ideology get funded?”
In the backdrop, Canal+ remains one of France’s biggest cinema funders. In an accord agreed with the main producer associations in March 2025, the group pledged €480m ($558m) for cinema over three years, split between €150m (($174m) in 2025, €160m ($186m) in 2026 and €170m ($197m) in 2027.
In Cannes, the group has supported 27 films in Official Selection while Studiocanal is directly involved in five films including Palme d’Or contender Another Day as well as Crescendo, Full Phil, Words of Love and Visitation.
Alongside the open letter, the Canal+ and Studiocanal logos were also booed when they appeared on the big screen ahead of the Full Phil premiere this past weekend.
Saada’s threat to cut off signatories of the treaty is unlikely to thaw the atmosphere.
Deadline was told by organisers of the open letter that while many professionals agreed with its sentiments, there were a number who had declined to sign for fear of reprisals. And since Saada’s words, one signatory who was prepared to talk to Deadline on the record about the situation has now asked that they be quoted anonymously.
The open letter in full:
Time to switch off Bolloré!
In October 2025, the group Canal+ acquired 34% of UGC, the third largest cinema chain in France, with the prospect of acquiring 100% of its shares by 2028. This marks a new step in Vincent Bolloré’s expansion strategy.
Through Vivendi, Bolloré already controls the Canal+ channel and its subsidiaries, including StudioCanal, Europe’s number one film production company. By acquiring UGC’s 55 cinemas in France and Belgium (including UGC Les Halles in Paris, the highest visited movie theatre in Europe, with 2.5 million admissions per year), Bolloré could gain control of the entire chain of production, from financing to distribution on both small and big screens.
His plans go beyond mere business deals: the billionaire makes no secret of his “civilizational project.” He is using his television channels such as CNews and his publishing houses to push his far-right, reactionary agenda. So far, his ideological offensive on film content has been discreet. However, we hold no illusions: this will not last. By controlling the entire financial chain, Bolloré has complete freedom to act when the time comes. We won’t be able to say we didn’t see it coming. The complete dismantling of the CNC is part of the Rassemblement National (France’s biggest far-right party)’s program. Do we want to risk a future in which only propaganda films serving an ideology get funded?
The culture war that everyone talks about is not a mere clash of ideas. By leaving French cinema in the hands of a far-right billionaire, we risk not only a homogenization of films, but a fascist takeover of our collective imagination.
We, producers, distributors, exhibitors, filmmakers, screenwriters, technicians, cinema workers, and above all citizens, no longer wish to remain spectators.
Today, for our projects as much as our salaries, we all depend to varying degrees on Bolloré’s money and we want to break the insidious silence imposed on our industry.
Together, let’s build a movement to defend our independence and our freedom to create, distribute, and program and join the ones who have started to do so.
Let’s gather against Bolloré taking control of UGC and against the far-right’s ever growing control over our industry
Le Collectif Zapper Bolloré (“Switch off Bolloré”) and more than 500 members of the film industry.
