May 18, 2026 10:52am PT

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

Elsa Keslassy

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Elsa Keslassy

International Correspondent

@elsakeslassy

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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’s now the country’s most watched news channel.

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.