Vivendi's main shareholder controls Editis, and is preparing to launch its takeover bid for Lagardère, the parent company of Hachette Livre.

One point is clear: keeping the current perimeter of these two rivals will not be authorized by European competition authorities.

"It would be presences of the two large groups of around 80%" in certain sectors: "84% extracurricular, 74% school ... In pocket literature, it would be around 65%. So it's huge", detailed this week Antoine Gallimard, the boss of number three Madrigall, on France Inter.

But Vincent Bolloré, experienced in acquisitions to grow what is often called an "empire", will probably not let Brussels dictate the conditions for it.

He will arrive, in all likelihood, with his proposals.

Which?

Kept in media silence, the publishers within Editis claim to be unaware of the intentions of their shareholder.

"It's a Vivendi subject," said a source within the publishing group.

sorting out

"Nobody is in Vincent Bolloré's head," Martine Prosper, secretary general of the CFDT National Book-Publishing Union, told AFP.

"We know absolutely nothing. But we see that for the employees of the two groups, it's a scary moment".

Between rumors and speculation, this sector which weighs more than three billion euros in turnover is eager to know what it will become.

Two scenarios seem possible.

Vivendi could get rid of Editis to have the right to control Hachette Livre, owner of some of the most prestigious houses in Paris: Grasset, Calmann-Lévy, Stock, Fayard, Le Livre de poche, Larousse, etc.

The two best sellers of French literature, Guillaume Musso and Virginie Grimaldi, as well as the publisher of the Asterix superstar, Albert René, would thus fall into the hands of Vincent Bolloré.

The latter obviously likes the international dimension of Hachette, less than a third of whose turnover is made in France.

The entrance to the premises of the Hachette Livre group in Paris, in 2002 JACQUES DEMARTHON AFP / Archives

The businessman put forward this globalized cultural ambition in front of the senators who are investigating concentration in the media.

"A group capable of proposing to a French author to translate his work abroad, to adapt it in series or in smaller digital elements to pass them on Dailymotion, Canal or other, seems to me to be an exciting subject for this famous + softpower +, which remains very important for France", he advanced.

Political fears

The other scenario, deemed more realistic, is for Vivendi to sort out which publishing houses to keep and which to sell.

This is the one believed by Conor O'Shea, a financial analyst who follows the group for Kepler Cheuvreux.

"The most likely is that he sells the French activities of Hachette, or else the segments where the two groups have a market share well above 50% (school, dictionaries, paperbacks)", he explains to the AFP.

"He likes the media business for its ability to generate cash quickly and its stable growth," recalls the analyst.

By buying Lagardère, "he wants to create a French Bertelsmann, a stable family group mixing books and audiovisual".

The German Bertelsmann attempted a similar operation in the United States, where it owns Penguin Random House.

He wanted to acquire Simon & Schuster, and the government moved to block what he describes as an "anti-competitive merger".

In France, this logic of safeguarding competition is compounded by strong political fears.

Vincent Bolloré chaired, in the media he owns, CNews and Europe 1, a marked right turn.

Journalists from Europe 1 demonstrate to denounce the growing influence of the Vivendi group, controlled by Vincent Bolloré, within their radio and its rapprochement with the television channel CNews, on June 30, 2021 in Paris Alain JOCARD AFP / Archives

Two former Ministers of Culture are convinced that he is pursuing the same goal in the book.

He "defends an ideological project of the far right", accused the socialist Aurélie Filippetti, also an author, at the end of January.

It could "support a unique current of ideas, which is the one we know", according to Françoise Nyssen, minister in the first government of President Emmanuel Macron, and also patron of Actes Sud editions.

© 2022 AFP