FIGAROVOX/TRIBUNE – The journalist and essayist was refused an interview with Romanian director Cristian Mungiu, Palme d’Or winner at Cannes for his film Fjord, because he works for media from the Bolloré group. He denounces the sectarianism that is rife in the 7th art.
Éric Naulleau is a journalist and essayist. He published La République, c’est lui! at Fayard in 2025.
Like many film buffs, I discovered the work of director Cristian Mungiu with a mixture of admiration and anguish when he won the Palme d’Or at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival. 4 months, 3 weeks, 2 days recounts an attempted abortion in Nicolae Ceauescu’s Romania where this practice was strictly prohibited. Terrible, admirable film, with extreme tension, very raw insight into the oppression of bodies and minds by a dictatorial regime. I hardly see that Johnny got his gun by Dalton Trumbo or You will not kill by Krzysztof KieÅ›lowski for having made such a strong impression on me, to the point of not being able to immediately resume the course of my existence.
Skip the ad
I was already very Balkanophile in terms of literature, I developed a passion for Romanian cinema, one of the rare ones from which an overall identity emerges through the diversity of inspiration of its main representatives, each more talented than the other. I subsequently interviewed Cristian Mungiu in Cannes, reviewed his films notably in the show Ça Balance à Paris that I hosted on Paris Premiere. So it was with great enthusiasm that I signed up for a press screening of Fjorda film which this year earned our filmmaker access to the very exclusive club of double Palme d’Or winners. To my amazement, the press officer, whom I have known for around fifteen years, asked me for what reason I was requesting to attend the aforementioned screening. A bit as if Pascal Praud welcomed me one morning on the set of Pro Hour where I officiate every week asking myself: “But who are you, sir?” I explained in return, as if nothing had happened, because we must always oppose reason to a world taken by madness, that I was working forCNews And read JDDque le JDNewsthe weekly supplement, gave me generous space for an interview at the opening of the cultural section. The response took a little while, but I had lost nothing by waiting: “ There will be no interview with Cristian Mungiu in JDNews ”.
“The phenomenon is part of the more general framework of a hunt for ideological deviants, of an expulsion from the cultural field by those who claim to impose a single thought on it, of a revocation of their right of citizenship in all areas.”
Eric Naulleau
For a press officer to oppose the majestic promotion of the film she represents is already very original. That there would therefore be authorized media and others banned in a democracy is no less true. That this censorship concerns a director who distinguished himself in the denunciation of totalitarian practices (not only 4 months, 3 weeks, 2 days, but the excellent sketch film Tales from the Golden Age) also constitutes a gourmet paradox. That the lightning of sectarianism should fall on me, however, is not surprising. The phenomenon is part of the more general framework of a hunt for ideological deviants, of an expulsion from the cultural field by those who claim to impose a single thought on it, of a revocation of their right of citizenship in all areas.
Also read
The 2026 Cannes Awards by Éric NeuhoffÂ: what a lack of courage!
Especially if they are associated in one way or another with Vincent Bolloré, one of the main financiers of French cinema through Canal +, now pursued by the vindictiveness of a few cardboard rebels from the 7e Art – unprecedented example of a pack that bites the hand that feeds it. Thus struck with a ban on exercising my profession, I ask for reasons of clarity to wear the distinctive sign which will designate me to the opprobrium of all right-thinking people, of all those who have pitched their tent in the campsite of Good. And long live all the cinemas, except the anti-fascist cinema which succeeded the “antifascist theater  » dénoncé en son temps par Lionel Jospin !
