When cancel culture backfires
The grandees of French cinema accused their industry’s chief patron of fascism. Now they seem surprised that he no longer wants to hire them.
Cancel culture is often wilfully misunderstood. It is a retributive system of public shaming and character assassination that seeks to punish dissent from the prevailing orthodoxy, often through libel or deliberate misrepresentation. It is not cancel culture to be denied a platform or refused employment by people you have publicly attacked. That would be like marching into a shop, telling the owner his products were trash, demanding a job, and then complaining when he refused.
A similar scenario is currently playing out in the French movie industry, and it’s as good an example as any of how cancel culture is so often misconstrued. It all began with a petition published in Libération on 11 May 2026. The over 600 signatories include prominent figures in the industry, such as Juliette Binoche, Adèle Haenel and Raymond Depardon. This ad hoc collective of actors and filmmakers refers to itself as ‘Zapper Bolloré’ (‘switch off Bolloré’) and takes aim at Vincent Bolloré, the right-wing billionaire businessman with a vast media empire. He effectively controls Canal+, the country’s dominant private film financier that backs an estimated 40% of French movies.
The petition focuses on Bolloré’s growing influence and expresses particular concern about his right-wing views. The signatories fear that Bolloré seeks to take over the industry and to use it as a conduit for his political ideology. They claim that he already uses outlets like CNews and publishing houses to push a reactionary and extreme right agenda. But the histrionics in the petition don’t end there:
‘Voulons-nous prendre le risque que demain ne soient plus financés que des films de propagande au service d’une idéologie?... En laissant le cinéma français aux mains d’un patron d’extrême droite, nous ne risquons pas seulement une uniformisation des films, mais une prise de contrôle fasciste sur l’imaginaire collectif.’
‘Do we want to risk a future in which the only films financed are propaganda in the service of an ideology?... By leaving French cinema in the hands of a far-right owner, we risk not only a homogenisation of films, but a fascist takeover of the collective imagination.’
Quelle horreur! The pearls have been well and truly clutched. Apparently these grandees of French cinema are seeking to cancel their own boss for being too right-wing. They are sick of the industry’s silence on the issue, and hope to build a new movement that will grant them independence from Bolloré’s venemous and wide-reaching tentacles.
The response from Maxime Saada, CEO of Canal+, was rather surprising. He said that the insult was obviously unjust, and announced that the company would no longer employ any of the signatories. They have just written their own blacklist…
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