Conservative billionaire Vincent Bolloré, owner of the Hachette group, said on Sunday he will recruit new authors to replace about 170 who left the prestigious Grasset imprint in protest at what they say is political interference.
The departures followed the exit of Grasset’s chief executive, Olivier Nora, which authors attribute to Bolloré. The billionaire, known for his conservative views and for steering his media outlets to the right, published a commentary in his Journal du Dimanche paper saying he was surprised by the “uproar” and vowing that Grasset would carry on.
“Grasset will continue, and those who are leaving will allow new authors to be published, promoted, recognized, and appreciated,” Bolloré wrote. He blamed “a small caste that believes itself above everything and everyone, and that co-opts and supports itself” for the protest and described himself as a Christian Democrat, promising Hachette will continue to publish any author who wishes to be published.
Bolloré said Nora, Grasset’s CEO for 26 years, left after a dispute over the publication date of a book by French-Algerian author Boualem Sansal. He also criticized Nora’s management, noting that Grasset’s turnover fell by 25% in 2025 while the CEO’s salary rose from €830,000 to €1 million.
Bolloré’s 2023 takeover of Hachette was welcomed by many conservatives who viewed it as correcting a perceived left-wing bias in French media.
The authors who quit, including philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy and prize-winning writers Virginie Despentes and Sorj Chalandon, published an open letter denouncing what they called “an unacceptable attack on the editorial independence” of the publisher. They said they refused to be “hostages in an ideological war that seeks to impose authoritarianism everywhere in culture and the media” and added, “We don’t want our ideas, our work, to be his property.”
President Emmanuel Macron commented at the Paris Book Festival, stressing the importance of editorial diversity, respect for authors, and preserving the history and identities of publishing houses.
Grasset, founded in 1907 and part of Hachette since 1954, built its reputation publishing major French literary figures such as Marcel Proust, Irène Némirovsky, François Mauriac and André Malraux. Under Nora’s leadership from 2000, it published authors including Nobel laureate Han Kang and Isabel Allende.
Edited by: Saim Dušan Inayatullah