Anti-Bolloré Letter Organizers Respond To Canal+ CEO Maxime Saada’s Boycott Comments: “This Threat Confirms Our Fears”
The organizers of an open letter raising the alarm over Vincent Bolloré’s growing control of France’s entertainment and media sectors have responded to comments by Canal+ CEO Maxime Saada that his group will no longer work with the signatories.
“These intimidation tactics are typical of his group’s majority shareholder, Vincent Bolloré,” the letter organizers, gathered under the banner of Zapper Bolloré (Switch-Off Bolloré), said in a statement sent to Deadline.
“Our open letter, responding to the UGC acquisition, only ever singled out the aforementioned without incriminating the Canal+ teams. This threat, however, confirms our fears. Can we still believe in Canal+’s independence from the far-right billionaire, against whom it is now officially impossible to speak out?,” it continued.
“The Zapper Bolloré collective offers its unwavering support to all the signatories of the open letter, calls on labor unions to defend them, and maintains its call to action more strongly than ever.”
Launched on the opening night of the Cannes Film Festival, the open letter titled “Time To Switch-Off Bolloré” was signed by 600 cinema professional including Juliette Binoche and Cannes 2026 Palme d’Or contenders Arthur Harari and Bertrand Mandico.
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 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.
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.
Vincent Bolloré officially stepped down as chair and CEO of the group in 2022, but is believed by many in the French media and entertainment worlds to still pull levers behind the scenes.
