More than 100 writers have quit the historic French publishing house Grasset in protest at its conservative billionaire owner, Vincent Bolloré, whose media empire has been accused of promoting reactionary and far-right ideas.
In an unprecedented walkout, dozens of writers including the acclaimed punk feminist novelist Virginie Despentes and the philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy, signed an open letter against Bolloré, 74, who is close to far-right figures.
“We refuse to be hostages in an ideological war that seeks to impose authoritarianism everywhere in culture and the media,” they wrote. “We don’t want our ideas, our work, to be his property.”
Writers who signed the letter included Vanessa Springora – whose award-winning bestseller Consent, recounting how she was groomed by a French novelist as a teenager, became a major film – as well as the novelist Laurent Binet.
The writers said they would also take legal action to recover rights to their earlier work. Grasset has been home to some of the biggest names in French literature.
The protest was sparked by the departure of the Grasset editor Olivier Nora, who had run the imprint for 26 years and was seen by writers as the last rampart against reactionary ideas. Nora’s departure was understood to have been forced.
Although no explanation was given publicly, it had been widely linked to the acquisition of the next book from the conservative French-Algerian novelist Boualem Sansal.
The journalist and writer David Dufresne tore up his Grasset contract on a TV chatshow, saying: “Bolloré is trading in commerce and ideology, not literature or essays.”
Bollore’s outlets have shifted sharply to the right in recent years, focusing on crime and immigration and giving frequent airtime for politicians from Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally party.
The authors’ protest was prompted by the exit of the publisher’s chief executive, Olivier Nora, who left the publishing house on Tuesday without an explanation.
French media reported Nora was pushed out by the publishing group’s owner, Louis Hachette Group, after a dispute about whether and when to publish a book by French-Algerian writer Boualem Sansal about his detention in Algeria.
Bollore is the biggest shareholder in Louis Hachette, with a 31% stake, through which he also controls media outlets such as the Journal du Dimanche and CNews. He is also the main shareholder of media conglomerate Vivendi.
Louis Hachette and Bollore did not respond to a request for comment. Previously, Bollore has said critics have wrongly portrayed him as an enemy in a cultural battle over media and power, and has described himself as a “scapegoat”.
Founded in 1907, Grasset, the publisher of Marcel Proust and Irene Nemirovsky, became part of the Hachette group in 1954. Under Nora’s tenure as president, which began in 2000, it published works by authors including Nobel laureate Han Kang and Isabel Allende.
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