EXCLUSIVE: The Federation of Screenwriters in Europe (FSE) has waded into the controversy over Vincent Bolloré’s management of the French leisure and media sectors, sparked by the ‘It’s Time To Change-Off Bolloré’ letter launched on the opening of the Cannes Movie Pageant, saying it’s symptomatic of a wider development throughout the Europe.
“The 2026 Cannes Movie Pageant shall be remembered because the unintended stage of an illustration of the rising threats to freedom of creation and expression in Europe,” stated the physique, gathering 31 screenwriter organisations in 27 European nations, representing 10,000 professionals.
Initially signed by some 600 cinema professionals, together with Juliette Binoche, Cannes 2026 Palme d’Or contenders Arthur Harari and Bertrand Mandico, the letter took purpose at Canal+ Group’s latest acquisition of a 34% stake in French manufacturing, distribution and exhibition main UGC, with an choice to purchase it outright by 2028.
It warned the acquisition marked a brand new step “in Vincent Bolloré’s growth technique” and bigger challenge to “push a right-wing, reactionary agenda” in France. The tycoon’s Bolloré Group is pay-TV large Canal+’s largest shareholder with a 30% stake.
Canal+ CEO and Chair Maxime Saada despatched a chill via the trade this previous weekend when he declared at his group’s conventional producers lunch in Cannes that it will by no means work once more with signatories of letter.
The letter has a obtained a blended response from French movie professionals. Many share its considerations over Bolloré’s rising management of the broader media and leisure world and right-wing agenda but additionally recommend that, for now, there are not any indicators of political interference in Canal+’s cinema actions.
The FSA tackled the differing views and in addition challenged the notion that for now Canal+ and its pan-European Studiocanal haven’t been touched by any form of interference.
“Two skilled organisations of producers publicly disavowed the open letter, nervous in regards to the penalties for his or her ongoing negotiations with the financier. Lastly, two days later, in Cannes, the president of the financier publicly introduced that the corporate would now not work with the signatories of the open letter — though, as president, he embodies a authorized entity designed to be unbiased from its shareholders,” it stated.
“Options that the considerations voiced by the 600 have been untimely or inappropriate have been invalidated in actual time in Cannes, by precisely these they have been designating.”
The FSA pointed to 4 reported circumstances of editorial interference at Canal Plus. They embrace a 2022 report by satirical newspaper Le Canard Enchainé that the script for the sequence Paris Police 1900 was modified on the request of Vincent Bolloré as a result of he didn’t approve of a storyline leaning into the introduction of laïcité in France with the 1905 regulation separating the state and faith.
“4 circumstances wherein works have been affected by selections attributed to the identical shareholder — of their financing, their content material or their distribution — have since been documented,” stated the FSA.
“Amongst them is the latest testimony of director Christophe Honoré, printed within the journal Trois Couleurs, reporting statements instantly attributed to the identical shareholder who personally intervened within the movie validation committees, resulting in the exclusion of two movies from Canal+ principal funding — one coping with homosexual characters, the opposite with a commerce unionist wrestle.”
Deadline has contacted Canal+ for touch upon these stories of interference which have been reported throughout French media.
Referring to its latest The Proper to Write report, methodically documenting its related circumstances in Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia and Bulgaria, the FSA stated the Vincent Bolloré case chimed with a rising sample throughout Europe.
“Buying the media and cultural industries to intervene within the creation of their content material. Dissenting voices are economically sanctioned whereas each demand for stronger authorized safety of creators is framed, via a rhetoric of disqualification, as a liberty-killing or archaic relic of the previous,” it stated.
“Underneath cowl of ethical ideas, these entities deploy purely discretionary selections serving a focused ideological agenda. Ideas which they invoke solely to contradict — corresponding to editorial range.”
The physique highlighted the truth that regulation exist at a nationwide and European degree to guard freedom of creation and freedom of expression, and to ban discrimination on grounds of political beliefs, commerce union actions or sexual orientation.
“The one remaining query is whether or not these legal guidelines shall be utilized with the identical seriousness with which they have been written,” the physique concluded.
