Former Hachette Livre chief Nourry says space for "freedom of creation" in France shrinking

Arnaud Nourry, the former chief of Hachette Livre, has painted a bleak picture of French publishing over the past three years since he was fired for opposing a merger with Editis that was rejected by the European Commission.

“I see the space for freedom of creation (in France) shrinking,” he said an interview with Le Monde after announcing the launch of Les Nouveaux Editeurs and its partnership with Simon & Schuster. Vivendi and Daniel Kretinsky, which own Hachette Livre and Editis respectively, are “more or less discovering the profession”, he added speaking for the first time since his no-compete clause was lifted.

For the new group, the reciprocal arrangement with S&S, which is the only major world group publishing only in the English language, will involve 20 to 30 titles a year. Nourry knows S&S c.e.o. Jonathan Karp well. While heading Hachette Livre, he tried three times to take over the group, but parent company Groupe Lagardère did not endorse the initiative.

Relations between authors and publishers in France "are more than ever a source of tension". Never have so many houses been up for sale—Humensis, Michel Lafon and Christian Bourgois—and major family groups such as Gallimard, Actes Sud and Albin Michel are undergoing a change of generation in their management. All this made it possible to form "a disruptive new group".

Nourry will hold more than 51% of the capital of Les Nouveaux Editeurs, which has between €5m and €10m to fund its first two or three years in business. At age 63, “I have passed the age to work for others," he said.

He expects between two and four publishers to join the new “free-standing” group by the end of the year. They will specialise in literature, non-fiction, knowledge, practical and coffee table books, but not school or extra-curricular books because these sectors are already overcrowded.

Asked whether he would recruit publishing stars such as Olivier Nora of Grasset, Manuel Carcassonne of Stock and Sophie de Closets, who left Fayard for Flammarion, he said they were friends and "my door is open to them".

It will not be difficult to offer authors a better deal than they have now, he said. He declined to say whether he would offer a minimum of 10% of the retail book prices, but predicted that if French publishers did not "make a move" to improve conditions for authors, agents will become more important to the detriment of publishers. In France authors sign contracts for 70 years after their death, with an extra seven years for each of the world wars. If French authors want to take their rights back, they have to prove to a court that their publisher has not consistently backed their books.

Nourry noted that his two successors at Hachette Livre, Pierre Leroy and Arnaud Lagardère, have been legally indicted on several charges, which is "unusual, isn’t it?" De Closets, "one of the most talented (French publishers) of her generation", has been followed at the helm of Fayard by the publisher of far-right politician Eric Zemmour. This is a far cry from the time when Claude Durand-Fayard—chief from 1980 to 2009—crossed the Iron Curtain to obtain Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago manuscript, he added.

Nourry left Hachette Livre in March 2021 after almost 20 years with the French group. He is well respected internationally, and there have been rumours that a return to publishing was imminent after his non-compete clause ran out.

Les Nouveaux Éditeurs’ mission is to offer "all publishing talents... an opportunity to develop their editorial project free of interference of any kind and in full support of their authors’ work, in an entrepreneurial culture". The publishing house will seek to ensure independence by granting publishing talents a "substantial minority stake" in their publishing house, and will aim to offer “best in class” contracts in terms of timespan, transparency, payment schedules and quality of service.