How Bolloré, the ‘French Murdoch’, carried Le Pen’s far right to the brink of power

French tycoon Vincent Bolloré has put his sprawling media empire at the service of the country’s nationalist right, precipitating a rightward shift in French politics. Pulling strings from behind the scenes in the manner of Rupert Murdoch, the billionaire corporate raider has orchestrated an alliance of bitter right-wing rivals in the run-up to Sunday’s legislative elections, bolstering the far-right National Rally’s chances of victory.

By: Benjamin DODMAN
Jun 27 2024

When conservative leader Eric Ciotti plotted his startling alliance with Marine Le Pen, shattering decades of Gaullist tradition, the head of Les Républicains (LR) consulted none of his senior party colleagues – not even Nicolas Sarkozy, the last of his political family to serve as French president.

Instead, the morning after President Emmanuel Macron called a snap election on June 9, Ciotti paid a visit to Bolloré, the billionaire corporate raider who has built a sprawling media empire precisely to engineer such an alliance.

The purpose of the visit, revealed by French daily Le Monde, was to “orchestrate Ciotti’s rallying behind the National Rally (RN)” – and to prepare for the backlash it was certain to provoke.

When Ciotti went public the next day, drawing furious condemnation from party officials, Bolloré’s media empire was ready to rally to his defence.

“Eric Ciotti has listened to grassroots supporters; it happens, sometimes, to a political leader,” said Pascal Praud, one of Bolloré’s star anchors, on the tycoon’s flagship broadcaster CNews. He went on to mock Ciotti’s critics within Les Républicains, claiming their rejection of an alliance with Le Pen proved they are “out of touch, lacking in courage, with no future, and clearly unable to understand anything, least of all their voters”.

Meanwhile, on the Bolloré-owned radio station Europe 1, the head of conservative newspaper Le Figaro lambasted the “unfathomable outpouring of anti-Ciotti sentiment”, ridiculing the recent electoral record of “the old barons” of the right. Either Les Républicains team up with the National Rally, Alexis Brézet added, or they are doomed to vanish.

In the run-up to the snap polls, Europe 1 has been told to make space for another of Bolloré’s star television anchors, Cyril Hanouna, who has actively sought to sponsor a wider alliance of rightwing parties on his popular talk show “Touche pas à mon poste”.

On June 13, with Ciotti in his studio along with representatives of the National Rally and rival far-right outfit Reconquête, Hanouna pulled out his phone to call the RN’s new poster boy Jordan Bardella, handing the handset over to his Reconquête guest – Sarah Knafo – and urging her to plead with Bardella for an alliance.

‘A personal victory for Bolloré’

A newly elected European lawmaker, Knafo is the partner of Reconquête founder Eric Zemmour, the former CNews pundit whose presidential run in 2022 enjoyed wide support among Bolloré’s media.

While Zemmour’s Elysée Palace bid eventually foundered, his unrivalled media exposure ensured the far right’s preferred topics – immigration, crime and the perceived threat from Islam – dominated the political conversation. It also furthered blurred the line between mainstream conservatives and the far right, providing fertile terrain for the “union des droites” (alliance of right-wing factions) that has long been Bolloré’s pet project.

“Uniting the French right and carrying it to power has always been Bolloré’s principal aim,” says Alexis Lévrier, a historian of the media who teaches at the Université de Reims Champagne Ardennes.

“That means breaking down the barriers that have long kept the mainstream right and the far right apart – and finding dependable lieutenants, like Eric Ciotti, to bridge the divide,” he adds.

While Ciotti’s alliance with Le Pen is resisted by virtually all heavyweights in his LR party, voter surveys suggest the move may still pay off.

Pollsters say Le Pen’s party, backed by Ciotti and a handful of his followers, is poised to win the largest share of votes in the legislative elections scheduled for June 30 and the following Sunday, possibly even clinching an absolute majority of seats in France’s lower house of parliament, which wields greater powers than the Senate.

The latter outcome would lead to France’s first far-right government since the Nazi-allied Vichy Regime – capping an extraordinary turnaround for an extremist party that was co-founded by Le Pen’s father Jean-Marie, a Vichy supporter and convicted anti-Semite.

“Bolloré is no personal fan of the Le Pen family brand, but he has recently warmed to the party,” says Lévrier. “In Bardella, whom Le Pen has named as her choice for PM, the National Rally has found a candidate that Bolloré can support.”

He adds: “In every respect, the far right’s likely victory in the upcoming vote would be a personal victory for Bolloré, a vindication of what his media empire was designed to achieve.”

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