The release of the book signed Jordan Bardella, What I'm looking for, immediately becoming a bestseller, draws attention to Fayard editions and their long history. The founder, Arthème Fayard, who arrived from Auvergne in Paris, founded his company in 1857. His great specialty was selling inexpensive books, an early formula for the Pocket Book. His son Joseph-Arthème Fayard consolidated the specialty of the popular novel, but opened up to great literature through the publication of the complete works of Alphonse Daudet, sold in booklets for 10 centimes.
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In 1904, the Modern Library could accommodate renowned writers, Paul Bourget, Hector Malot, Marcel Prévost, Maurice Barrès: their copyrights were halved, but the print runs of their books increased tenfold. The popular novel was not abandoned, however, notably the swashbuckling novels of Ponson du Terrail (Swiss roll), Paul Féval (The Hunchback) ; Michel Zévaco (The Pardaillan). In 1911, Fayard experienced immense success with the series of Ghosts by Marcel Allain and Pierre Souvestre.
Xenophobic and anti-Semitic
Fayard, after the Great War, continued its momentum: popular novels, sentimental novels, spy novels… But the publisher intended to diversify its publications, to retain the loyalty of the bourgeois public as much as the usual readers of The Slave in Love or from the ingenuous Prostitute. One man became the main engineer, Pierre Gaxotte.
Normalian, history professor, disciple of Maurras, xenophobic and anti-Semitic, he brought the spirit and authors of Action Française into the catalog. He had to direct the weekly Candide where he wrote, among other things, filthy attacks against Léon Blum (“First of all, he is ugly. On the body of a disjointed puppet, he walks the sad head of a Palestinian mare…”). He was also the head of I'm everywhereinitially intended for international politics, before Gaxotte left the reins on Brasillach and Rebatet, who made it the main French fascist weekly of the 1930s. In the meantime, Gaxotte had launched a successful collection, the Great Historical Studies, welcoming Maurrassians like Jacques Bainville and Louis Bertrand.
“A publisher does not necessarily agree with its authors”
After the whirlwinds of the post-Second World War, in 1958 Fayard fell into the tentacles of Hachette, nicknamed “the green octopus”, just like, at various dates, Grasset, Fasquelle, Stock, Presses de la Cité… In its status as a subsidiary, Fayard experienced new growth, first under the direction of Charles Orengo, who notably published The Red Orchestra by Gilles Perrault and When China wakes up by Alain Peyrefitte, taking up the tradition of an open, eclectic, pluralist house, which Claude Durand, who came from Editions du Seuil, of which, to his great chagrin, he was unable to become the new boss, brought to its peak.
This one beautifully broadens the palette of the house. In addition to Solzhenitsyn, for whom he was the official editor since his work at Seuil, he published Hélène Carrère d'Encausse, Max Gallo, Jacques Attali, Jean Vautrin, Élisabeth Badinter, but also François Mitterrand, Lech Walesa, Hillary Clinton, Shimon Pérès, Nelson Mandela…
Only one of its authors caused him some trouble, Renaud Camus, anti-Semite, sovereignist and theoretician of the “great replacement”, with his book French campaign. To the attacks that the “Renaud Camus affair” brought him, Durand proudly responded in the name of freedom of expression: a publisher did not necessarily agree with its authors!
The era of the Bolloré empire
He left the management of Fayard at the age of 71 in 2009. Olivier Nora then Sophie de Closets then Isabelle Saporta succeeded him, until Vincent Bolloré, buyer of Vivendi, including the Hachette group, imposed Lise Boëll as CEO of Fayard. She had been the editor of Éric Zemmour and Philippe de Villiers, at Albin Michel; she is considered the fervent editor of right-wing and far-right politicians. Under his leadership, Jordan Bardella realized his dream of being published by the major publishing house.
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Vincent Bolloré, whose political cause is the union of the right and the extreme right, this “unity of the patriot camp” as recommended by Patrick Buisson, is thus expanding his media empire without restraint. Having the Relay in each station, having conquered CNews, C8, Canal +, Europe1, Le Journal du DimancheBolloré, owner of Hachette Livre, patiently weaves his web. The capture of Fayard is not the least of his conquests, and one can wonder if the Fayard of Claude Durand is definitely condemned to become the Fayard of Pierre Gaxotte again.
