Canal+ Chief Says Company Will Stop Working With Petition Signers

The chief executive of Canal+ announced Sunday that the company will no longer work with hundreds of film industry figures who signed a petition expressing concern over the influence of the group’s owner. The open letter, published earlier this week to coincide with the opening of the Cannes Film Festival, was signed by more than 600 people, including actor-director Juliette Binoche, director and photographer Raymond Depardon, French-Iranian filmmaker Sepideh Farsi, and director Arthur Harari.

The signatories said that leaving French cinema in the hands of a far-right owner risked not only the standardisation of films but a fascist takeover of the collective imagination. They also expressed alarm over Canal+ taking a stake in UGC, the third-biggest network of French cinemas, with a view to fully owning it in 2028.

The letter warned that the owner would be in the position of controlling the entire fabrication chain of films from financing to distribution and release on the big and small screen. Signatories said the influence of his ideological offensive on the content of films has so far been discreet, but they are under no illusion that this will last.

Cannes on Sunday, the Canal+ chief executive called the petition an injustice toward the Canal+ teams, who are committed to defending the independence of Canal+ and the full diversity of its choices. He added that he will no longer work with and no longer wants Canal to work with the people who signed that petition.

The company owns StudioCanal, Europe’s leading film and television production and distribution group. Recent StudioCanal films include the Amy Winehouse biopic Back to Black and Paddington in Peru.

The owner also controls the channel CNews, the radio station Europe 1, and the Sunday paper Le Journal du Dimanche. In a senate hearing in 2022, the owner denied political or ideological interventionism, saying his interest in acquiring media was purely financial.

The tumult mirrors similar upheaval in the publishing industry. Last month, more than 100 writers quit the publishing house Grasset in protest at the owner’s control of its parent company, Hachette. In a sign of the owner’s divisive reputation, the Canal+ logo was booed at some screenings this year, including for the opening film, The Electric Kiss.