'Zapper Bolloré': Hollywood stars join petition against billionaire
Heavyweight support: Javier Bardem, Ken Loach, Mark Ruffalo, Aki Kaurismäki and Yorgos Lanthimos have joined an op-ed denouncing Vincent Bolloré’s grip on cinema, now backed by nearly 3,500 film professionals.
The collective "Zapper Bolloré" has announced that Spanish actor Javier Bardem, British director Ken Loach and American actor Mark Ruffalo have joined the signatories of the open letter expressing concern about conservative businessman Vincent Bolloré’s grip on the film industry.
In this text, the initiators denounce what they see as Vincent Bolloré’s "tentacular, ideological hold" over the French film industry. They warn of an increasing concentration of media and cultural power in the hands of the billionaire from Brittany.
The first signatories included actors Adèle Haenel, Juliette Binoche and Blanche Gardin, actors Swann Arlaud and Jean-Pascal Zadi, photographer and documentary-maker Raymond Depardon, as well as director and screenwriter Arthur Harari.
None of the new signatories highlighted by "Zapper Bolloré" is French. Alongside the big Hollywood names, they include other directors: Palestinian Annemarie Jacir, Finn Aki Kaurismäki, Greek Yorgos Lanthimos and Brazilian Walter Salles.
The Canal+ boss’s outburst, a snowball effect from a "two-bit pressure tactic"
According to the collective, 3 460 industry professionals have now signed this open letter; there were 600 before the statement on Sunday by Canal+ president Maxime Saada. He had said he no longer wanted to work with the signatories of the text, who denounced "the hold of the far right" on cinema via Canal+, in which Vincent Bolloré is the main shareholder.
Maxime Saada’s comments in the middle of the Cannes festival caused something of a stir in the film world, with several actors and directors voicing concern about a threat to freedom of expression.
On Thursday, actor Alain Chabat, a key figure of the Canal+ "spirit", told AFP he deplored the group boss’s "two-bit pressure tactic".
"There were plenty of ways of responding to this thing," said the actor, who stars in Quentin Dupieux’s Vertige, screened out of competition in Cannes. "But from there to adding this two-bit pressure tactic on people who are expressing an opinion, or at any rate who have a concern, legitimate or not…", he went on.
The director of Asterix & Obelix: Mission Cleopatra nonetheless said he "understood" that Canal+ staff might have been hurt by the open letter. The group "produces films that are nothing like one another, because there is real diversity there", the actor explained.
Actor Jonathan Cohen, who shares top billing with Alain Chabat in Vertige, an animated film directed by Quentin Dupieux, told AFP he "understood the legitimate fear" of the open letter’s signatories.
Jonathan Cohen himself co-directed La Flamme, a comedy series broadcast on Canal+. He says that the Canal+ teams, including Laurent Hassid, head of film acquisitions, and Maxime Saada, "protect" and "turn Canal into a kind of haven which, for now, produces French films in all their plurality".
Bolloré, the deep pockets behind publishing and cinema
Canal+ has in fact committed to investing €160 million in French cinema in 2026 and €170 million in 2027, after €150 million in 2025 (which funded 189 French films). These sums are nevertheless down on the €220 million invested in previous years.
More broadly, Vincent Bolloré’s list of acquisitions reads like a "who’s who" of the cultural world.
The group that bears his name manages an equity portfolio (source in French) worth €10.6 billion as of 31 December 2025.
This notably includes:
• 18.4% of Universal Music Group, the world leader in music,
• 30.4% of Canal+, a global audiovisual group,
• 30.4% of Louis Hachette Group, a leader in publishing, travel retail and media,
• 30.4% of Havas, one of the world’s largest communications groups,
• 29.3% of Vivendi, which manages a portfolio of listed and unlisted assets in the content, media and entertainment industries.
The publishing world already up in arms against Bolloré
The Breton billionaire is already well used to protest open letters.
In April, more than a hundred writers announced they were leaving publishing house Grasset after the dismissal of its chairman Olivier Nora. In a joint letter, they denounced – you guessed it – Vincent Bolloré’s excessive influence, accusing him of "imposing authoritarianism everywhere in culture and the media".
The tycoon bought the Hachette group in 2023, the owner of Grasset and other major publishing houses, as well as the pay-TV channels Canal+ and CNews, radio station Europe 1 and magazines such as Elle.
Subsequently, more than 300 authors and publishing figures, led by Leïla Slimani, Virginie Despentes and Emmanuel Carrère, called for the creation of a "conscience clause" in their sector.
"It is time to draw a line. That line has a name: the conscience clause. It exists for journalists. It must be extended, not to weaken companies, but to restore a basic balance between freedom of enterprise and the freedom not to serve what one disapproves of," the 308 signatories of this open letter demanded on Sunday 19 April.
For his part, the conservative billionaire penned an opinion piece in one of his own newspapers and bluntly promised to find new authors for one of France’s most prestigious publishing houses, following the departure of those who object to political interference.
Bolloré, a devout Catholic who has invested part of the family fortune in a media empire aligned with his conservative convictions, said he was surprised by the "din" caused within the publishing house, blaming "a small caste that thinks it is above everything and everyone, and that co-opts and props itself up".
This tone hardly bodes well for any potential dialogue with the French film industry which, it bears repeating, depends heavily on Vincent Bolloré’s largesse.
