Hachette Livre staff say they are 'ashamed to be associated' with parent company Vivendi

The Hachette Livre staff in France have said they are “ashamed” to be associated with parent company Vivendi, which is controlled by multi-billionaire Vincent Bolloré and his family.

In a message to colleagues, revealed by Challenges - a weekly business magazine headquartered in Paris - and published in full by the online literary website ActuaLitté, the publisher’s elected works council denounced the alleged far-right editorial policy of the “Bolloré sphere,” which includes publishing house Fayard, and several media.

The message followed the publication of Fayard of Bannie (Banished) by former Russia Today France chief Xenia Fedorova on 5th March. According to the staff, this “crossed the red line” following the company’s publication of “Ce que je cherche” by Jordan Bardella, head of France’s National Rally party.

Federova, a weekly columnist on the Vivendi-owned CNews 24-hour French television news channel, is described by experts as the “head of the Kremlin’s French propaganda,” it noted. The EU banned Russia Today in 2022.

The message also denounced the display of JDNews, Vivendi’s alleged “extreme-right” weekly newspaper, in the entrance hall of the Hachette Livre head office at Vanves just outside Paris, declaring that the “founding values of Hachette are the opposite of the ideas promoted now”.

The news comes after the release of the company’s latest corporate social responsibility report, which stressed the publisher’s role in “contributing to the world of education, culture and democracy, (and) developing more ecological and inclusive models,” the message said.

A recent article in the newspaper Le Monde noted that Bolloré media backs Russian president Vladimir Putin, and US president Donald Trump and vice-president JD Vance. Some of the books Trump supporters want banned from libraries and schools in the US were published by the company’s American subsidiary Hachette Book Group, the message added.

The works council said it had been alerting the management for months of the “industrial and social risk (of the tilt to the far-right) weighing on our activities”. This includes alleged broken distribution contracts, boycotts by booksellers, teachers and readers, and the departure or failure to recruit authors and staff.

The group’s school textbook publisher Hatier is also in a state of unrest over a move from its offices in central Paris to the headquarters in Vanves. Staff are unhappy partly because they will have less work space.

The Bookseller has contacted the Hachette Livre management for comment.