Canal+ CEO says group will stop working with 600 industry professionals who signed petition against Vincent Bolloré

Canal+ chief executive Maxime Saada said Sunday at the Cannes Film Festival that the group will stop working with 600 film industry professionals who signed a petition against right-wing billionaire owner Vincent Bolloré.

"I experienced that petition as an injustice toward the Canal+ teams, who are committed to defending the independence of Canal+ and the full diversity of its choices," Saada said. "I will no longer work with and I no longer want Canal to work with the people who signed that petition."

The petition called for mobilization against "the growing grip of the far right" on the film industry under Bolloré and Canal+. Signatories include French actress Juliette Binoche, director Arthur Harari — co-writer of the 2023 Oscar-winning "Anatomy of a Fall" — and director Emmanuel Marre. Harari is premiering his film "The Unknown" in the main competition at Cannes; Marre's film "A Man Of His Time," about France's collaboration under Nazi rule, is also in the competition.

The Canal+ logo was booed at some Cannes screenings this year, including for the opening film "The Electric Kiss." The announcement is likely to send shockwaves through the European industry at the annual gathering of the world's movie elite on the French Riviera.

The tumult mirrors similar upheaval in the media and publishing worlds where Bolloré, a conservative close to far-right politicians, is reshaping businesses he controls from television channels to publishing houses. Last month more than 100 authors at the Bolloré-owned Grasset publishing group, home to some of the biggest names in French literature, said they would leave after the ousting of its long-time CEO.