Cannes’ Off-Screen Drama: Canal+, Bolloré and a Reckoning for French Cinema

At this year’s Cannes Film Festival, the biggest controversy isn’t tied to a polarizing film or a political speech at a press conference. It’s about Canal+ and the increasingly fraught question of whether France’s most powerful movie financier can remain insulated from the conservative political stance of its billionaire shareholder, Vincent Bolloré.

The debate erupted after roughly 600 film industry professionals, including Juliette Binoche and Arthur Harari (whose film “The Unknown” starring Léa Seydoux premieres today at Cannes) signed a petition criticizing Bolloré’s growing influence over French media and culture, calling out Canal+‘s acquisition of a 34% stake in theater chain UGC and raising concerns over a rightward shift of the group’s editorial line in the run up to the presidential election in 2027, where the far right party Rassemblement National is a leading contender. Amplifying concerns over Bolloré’s ideological agenda is the presence of CNews, France’s equivalent to Fox News which has, over the years, given a mainstream platform to reactionary, far right voices, within Canal+ Group. It was the country’s most watched news channel until April.
Speaking on Sunday at Canal+’s annual producers luncheon in Cannes, Canal+ chairman Maxime Saada stunned the crowd when he said that he no longer wanted the company to work with signatories of the petition.

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“As a result, I will no longer work — I no longer want Canal to work — with the people who signed this petition,” Saada said, calling it an “injustice” toward Canal’s commissioning and acquisition teams. “If people call Canal staff crypto-fascists, I don’t want to work with people who call me a crypto-fascist. I’m sorry, but for me, that’s where the line is.” Saada was referring to Harari’s recent comment as part of an interview in Libération newspaper after it ran the petition called Zapper Bolloré (Switch-Off Bolloré).

The company, which is behind six movies at Cannes — notably Quentin Dupieux’s “Full Phil” starring Kristen Stewart and Woody Harrelson, and Jeanne Herry’s “Garance” starring Adèle Exarchopoulos — has been booed and whistled at Cannes screenings whenever the Canal+ logo appears onscreen.

In the last 24 hours since Saada’s stark declaration at Cannes, a number of signatories including Binoche and Jean-Pascal Zadi are rumored to have reached out to the group. Despite the “black list” threat, an industry source says the group won’t change its editorial policy and won’t “track down” the 600+ signatories, many of whom are crew members and lesser known actors and producers, with the exception of a handful of filmmakers, notably those whose debut features were funded exclusively by Canal+.

During his speech on Sunday, Saada vigorously defended Canal+‘s editorial independence and reminded the audience that the pay TV group split from Vivendi (which owns several right-wing media outlets) 18 months ago and was listed at the London stock exchange. Bolloré’s banner, meanwhile, is Canal+ Group’s largest shareholder with a 30% stake. While he officially retired as CEO in 2022, it’s well known that Bolloré occasionally attends green-lighting committees at Canal+ Group, although his influence over decisions has seldom been proven apart from the notorious case of François Ozon’s “By the Grace of God” which wasn’t bought by the channel.

Saada said he was “tired of explaining that Canal supports all kinds of cinema, all of its diversity,” citing films with left-leaning themes, such as Boris Lojkine’s “Souleymane’s Story” about a Guinean delivery biker in Paris who is seeking asylum, and Dominik Moll’s “Case 137” which is set against the backdrop of the yellow vest protests in France.

Speaking of the group’s role as the biggest backer of French film production, he added that “every year we show dozens of films that wouldn’t exist without Canal and that represents the full diversity of cinema.”

The executive also used the high-profile gathering at the Martinez Hotel to reaffirm Canal+‘s long-term commitment to French cinema and the country’s theatrical model as negotiations loom over the renewal of the broadcaster’s agreement with film guilds to invest in French and European films. Under its latest three-year agreement, Canal+ pledged to invest €480 million across three years until the end of 2027 — €160 million less than during the previous term. The next round of negotiations for a new pact has already begun and will likely see the banner ramp up its investment, according to an industry source.

“Canal is meant to invest more,” Saada said. “I want Canal to return to a higher level. I don’t say this as obligations; I say it as necessary investments.” The TV outfit has gone beyond its investment obligations partly because cinema is a key pillar driving subscriptions and the level of their funding determines the timeline of their access to newly released movies. As such, Canal+ is allowed to broadcast movies six months after their theatrical roll-out, compared with 15 months for Netflix. Canal+ Group is also the parent company of Studiocanal, which runs theatrical operations across key markets including France, the U.K., Germany, Spain and Australia/New Zealand — and saw the box office for its productions and co-productions triple between 2022 and 2024.

Addressing Canal+‘s investment in UGC, one of France’s top exhibition chains, Saada sought to downplay suggestions of an imminent takeover while leaving the door open to a future acquisition. “It’s not a takeover. We did not take control of UGC; we took a 34% stake,” he said, before acknowledging that “it’s possible that we take control of UGC” in 2028. “I won’t hide that on the Canal side we’d like to do it, but it’s by no means done,” he said, describing the investment as “further proof of Canal’s attachment to France, to the cultural exception, and to cinema.” He also rejected the idea that the group will look to limit the number of third-party produced films on UGC screens, or amplify the release of movies with a Christian conservative agenda like the ones hailing from Saje Distribution which have appeared in some UGC theaters.

Besides CNews, other media outlets that underwent a major editorial overhaul and leadership changes after being bought by Bolloré include Europe 1, the radio station which shifted toward more conservative opinion-driven content closely aligned with CNews. In print media, Vivendi, the former parent company of Canal+ Group, controls JDD, France’s only Sunday newspaper whose editorial repositioning drew intense backlash in 2023 following the appointment of Geoffroy Lejeune, formerly editor of the far-right magazine Valeurs Actuelles, triggering a historic newsroom strike lasting around 40 days. Most recently, Bolloré sparked uproar in the publishing world after firing Olivier Nora, who was Grasset’s beloved CEO for 26 years, over a fight tied to the release plan for the publication of Algerian author Boualem Sansal’s book, prompting the exit of over 100 authors from Grasset. Nora was replaced with Jean-Christophe Thiéry, a close associate of Vincent Bolloré.

Tensions between Canal+ and France’s predominantly left-leaning film community are likely to keep mounting in the run-up to the 2027 presidential election, with Rassemblement National polling as a frontrunner and anxieties running high across the cultural sector. So far, Canal+ has been largely spared the editorial overhaul that reshaped CNews, Europe 1 and JDD — but the open question is what happens beyond 2027, particularly if a far-right government moves to reform France’s cultural financing model. In that sense, the 2028-2030 agreement Saada is currently negotiating with industry guilds could offer a measure of reassurance: a commitment that Canal+ will continue financing French cinema regardless of who wins the Élysée or what cultural policy shifts may follow.