On Friday March 8, 2024, the CEO of publishing house Fayard was sentenced. In the hot seat for weeks, Isabel Saporta was called for a dismissal interview on March 20. An epilogue to the open conflict that pitted him against Fayard, Hatchet’s parent company.
This thunderbolt of Fayard is the latest incarnation of the Breton billionaire’s foray into the French editorial landscape. (And the wider media.) A series that began in 2019, when Vivendi, controlled by the Bolloré group, bought Editis, the second largest French publishing group.
A very right-wing editor
In 2022, the businessman is launching a takeover bid for the Lagardere group, owner of Hachette Lever, France’s No. 1 publishing company. But the European Commission is rolling its eyes at this possibility of concentration. In November 2023, Vivendi sold Editis to Czech billionaire Daniel Kretynsky, thereby acquiring Lagardere.
Among the publishing houses given to Kretinsky is Plon, whose head Vincent Bollor has placed Lise Boel, now 57. The latter, marked on the far right, is edited by Eric Zemmer and Philippe de Villiers. Her appointment also led to much crisis and gnashing of teeth at Plon, with Lis Boel also known to be very authoritarian.
But she is also known for having the perfect ear of Vincent Bollor. So it was not surprising that the latter sends her back to his galaxy. Last February, he offered him the management of Mazarin, a subsidiary of Fayard. But Fayard’s CEO, Isabel Saporta, was asked to allow Mazarin to publish certain texts under the dual Mazarin-Fayard brand. Which she refused, fearing a takeover by Fayard’s extreme right, like many of her employees. Because Lees Boel also intends to publish the first book by National Rally President, Jordan Bardella…
A breakthrough for the far right?
Ironically, the arrival of Isabel Saporta in 2022 caused much upheaval. She left a number of staff and writers, including Virginie Grimaldi and Jacques Attali, who feared their lack of independence from the group head. Isabel Saporta, a former journalist, fully trusts Nicolas Sarkozy, who is also the director of Hachette and whom she has published. Time to fight In the month of August.
Isabelle Saporta, however, rose against the prospect of success by the extreme right at Fayard, born in 1857 and who has published great writers, thinkers and humanists. She lost her arm wrestling. If we consider the very conservative turn taken by Vincent Bolloré’s media, whose JDD, Europe 1, CNewsThis may foreshadow a serious change for the home of Michel Serre, Robert Badinter, Boris Vian, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn…
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