Soon to be in its seventies, the 14th fortune of France, according to Challenges, still firmly holds the reins of the family holding company, but wants to leave the hand to the seventh generation, his sons already presidents of the Bolloré (international logistics and oil) and Vivendi (media) groups. .

On February 17, the boss attached to his Breton roots will celebrate the bicentenary of the Odet paper factory, near Quimper (Finistère), founded by Nicolas Le Marié and taken over a few years later by his grandfather.

The family business would have come to an end if Vincent Bolloré, a young investment banker in Paris, had not decided in 1981 to take over the Odet-Cascadec-Bolloré (OCB) factories with his brother, on the verge of bankruptcy.

He then goes from cigarette paper to plastic film, then to electric capacitors.

Bolloré Technologies went public in 1985.

This adventure first gave him the image of a sympathetic boss.

Smiling, affable, the young manager close to the new right - François Léotard, Alain Madelin and Gérard Longuet, of whom he is the brother-in-law - describes himself as "too nice" during an appearance at Thierry Ardisson in 1987 .

At the same time, he took control of the SCAC (Commercial charter and fuel company), obtained shares in the former state tobacco production monopoly, and was inducted into the presidency of the discreet Rivaud bank.

On the financial side, the raids are linked, targeting in particular the media: first Bouygues (parent company of TF1), Pathé, Havas or Ubisoft.

Vincent Bolloré at a meeting of the Havas group in December 2005 in Paris JACQUES DEMARTHON AFP/Archives

"He is one of the first activists in France, and that's a compliment," says the co-founder of the CIAM fund Catherine Berjal, who shares his taste for sniffing out bargains.

- "A pooch side"

"He made very few losing moves and often managed to make a gain when he did not take control. It's his tails side I win, tails I win too", supports Philippe Bailly, from the firm NPA Conseil .

When DTT was launched in 2005, Vincent Bolloré won his first television channel, Direct 8, on which he did not hesitate to intervene live.

Despite a risky start, he managed through a financial coup to sell it to Canal+ for shares in its parent company Vivendi, which he took control of in 2014.

His brutal bringing to heel of the "Canal spirit" then marks the spirits: the executives are disembarked, end of the "Zapping", of the investigation, the "Guignols" sink, the editorial staff of the news channel begins a strike historical.

Vincent Bolloré imposes the polemicist Éric Zemmour on the antennas of CNews, which he relaunches on the model of the very conservative American channel Fox News, and gives free rein to Cyril Hanouna on C8.

A fervent Catholic, he also develops Christian broadcasts, a traditionalist tendency.

"I am not a financial investor, I am an industrial investor. I must therefore have control of the editorial", he said to Télérama in 2007.

Vincent Bolloré at a gala organized by the Canal+ channel in February 2016 in Paris Geoffroy VAN DER HASSELT AFP/Archives

At the same time, legal proceedings rain down on journalists who investigate its activities, particularly in Africa.

"There is a pooch side to him, he has fun with it all," journalist Nicolas Vescovacci told AFP, who obtained Vivendi's conviction for "abusive procedure" against him during the writing of the book. "Almighty Vincent".

- bogeyman -

Today, Vincent Bolloré plans to sell African logistics, weighed down by corruption investigations, while his latest masterstroke by introducing Universal Music Group on the stock market allows him to further strengthen himself in the media and publishing.

After buying the Prisma magazines (Télé-Loisirs, Femme Actuelle, Capital), the boss of Editis is about to swallow Lagardère (Hachette, Europe 1, Le JDD, Paris Match).

Vincent Bolloré at a meeting of the Vivendi group in April 218 in Paris ERIC PIERMONT AFP / Archives

"There is such pressure, saying + Vincent Bolloré appalling Bogeyman + (Bogeyman, editor's note) scarecrow, (...) it is natural that they are afraid", he launched in January to a parliamentary commission of inquiry into media concentration, which questioned him about the concerns of the JDD editorial staff for its independence.

The political world is also worried, less than 100 days before the presidential election.

"Mr. Bolloré must understand that it is not up to the press bosses to decide who should be President of the Republic", launched in November Marine Le Pen, the candidate of the National Rally, who considered herself badly treated compared to Éric Zemmour.

"Our interest is not political and is not ideological: it is a purely economic interest", assured the interested party to the senators.

© 2022 AFP