'Vincent Bolloré's strategy is to take over the media and publishers to turn them into propaganda tools'

W

hat does the Grasset affair reveal? After Sophie de Closets in 2022, Hachette has just ousted another respected publisher, Olivier Nora. This brutal method is the norm in large publishing corporations: People are moved around like pawns. Except that in this case, the reason was not financial, whatever Vincent Bolloré, the group's owner, may say. It stemmed from a power struggle over editorial decisions, rooted in ideology.

Admittedly, financial capitalism, which has taken root in publishing through successive takeovers, gives shareholders decision-making power. In L'Edition sans éditeurs ("Publishing Without Publishers"), French-American publisher André Schiffrin drew on the American experience to warn about the risks involved in the concentration of this sector.

Books are not just another commodity. The publishing groups had understood this well, opting for what is called horizontal integration: respecting the editorial independence of publishing houses run by professionals who know their catalog and authors, as long as financial expectations are met – still placing external pressure on publishers. These professionals are tasked with building on a longstanding symbolic capital, which, when converted into economic capital, ensures a certain stability of income.