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French collective urges Hachette Livre authors to 'jump ship' over 'right-wing shift'
A French collective is calling for the publisher Hachette Livre authors to jump ship as a protest against the group’s alleged political right-wing shift since the its parent company Lagardère was bought by Vivendi two years ago, according to the French news site ActuaLitté.
The collective, Disarm Bolloré, targets billionaire Vincent Bolloré and his family, who control Vivendi, and is encouraging the general public to write to well known authors calling for them to "desert Bolloré".
Among the dozens of books published by Hachette houses at the rentrée littéraire at the end of August, the Collective commented that they were "sad to find authors who [they] thought shared [their] political ideals".
Not all the authors are ready to boycott the group, however. Author Sorj Chalandon was quoted as saying that his boss is the Grasset chief Olivier Nora, not Vincent Bolloré. He said he had no problem with his latest book about the proletarian left, his 12th published by Grasset, but he implied he would leave if "harm were done to Nora or his team".
Mona Chollet, who is published by Livre de Poche, said a boycott is complicated in publishing, as houses have ecosystems built over many years and are staffed by people who "sometimes bring to life ideas that oppose those of their shareholders".
The collective also claimed in a statement that it had carried out a number of other actions over the past year. These include persuading 100 French language booksellers in France and abroad to stop selling Hachette Livre titles, the insertion of hundreds of thousands of protest bookmarks inside the publisher’s books and demonstrations at the Lagardère chain of Relay outlets in railway stations.
It also claimed it had garnered support from some teacher unions and parents to banish Hachette Livre textbooks in order to counter Bolloré’s "neo-fascist project for schoolbook publishing", and disrupted the group’s Fayard stand at the Paris Book Festival in April. Fayard has recently published several books by right-wing authors, including the leader of the National Rally (Rassemblement National) party Jordan Bardella.
Hachette Livre has been contacted for comment.
