Tribune denouncing Vincent Bolloré’s “control” over cinema: “The legislator will perhaps have to question these questions”, believes the general delegate of the Cannes Festival

“The private actor takes up a lot of space” in French cinema, observes Wednesday May 13 on France Inter, Thierry Frémaux, general delegate of the Cannes Festival, after the column published in Libération Monday by 600 cinema professionals who denounce “the influence growth of the extreme right” on the cinema through the intermediary of the billionaire Vincent Bolloré.

“The legislator will perhaps have to wonder about these questions”, adds Thierry Frémaux. For him, France is a step behind the rules set across the Atlantic: “In the United States, this is not possible. It has not been possible for a long time: studios cannot own cinemas”he recalls.

In the anti-Bolloré column, Raymond Depardon, Swann Arlaud, Juliette Binoche, and even Adèle Haenel underline that the Canal+ group, of which Vincent Bolloré is the reference shareholder, “acquired 34% of the capital of UGC, the third largest network of French cinemas, with the prospect of acquiring 100% of the shares by 2028”.

The general delegate of the Cannes Festival, for his part, would like to point out that this is not the first time that French cinema has rebelled against the economic world. “It’s a great tradition, I believe, in France”citing “the time when there was Costa-Gavras, Bertrand Tavernier, Gérard Oury, Claude Berri who went to Strasbourg or Brussels to defend authors’ rights” or even “Louis Jouvet and Jean Gabin, in the post-war period, when it was necessary to protest against the Marshall Plan which did not put the interests of French cinema as a priority”.