Refusal of advertising campaign for Jordan Bardella’s book, Fayard takes Médiatransports to court

Éditions Fayard announced on Friday November 8 that they were taking legal action against the railway advertising agency Médiatransports, after its refusal of the poster campaign for Jordan Bardella’s book.

“Editions Fayard have entered today, via the company Hachette Livre and its advisors, M^es Sarah Saldmann and Christian Charrière-Bournazel, the Paris commercial court in order to assert their rights and to force the Médiatransports agency to execute its broadcasting contract”declared the publisher of the president of the National Rally in a press release. This book published on Saturday, and entitled What I’m looking foris the first by a leader of the National Rally to be published by a major publishing house.

Médiatransports, which operates the advertising panels on behalf of the RATP and Gares & Connexions (a subsidiary of the SNCF), justified the termination of the contract by the nature of the book. The authority declared at the end of October that “the promotion of the work of a practicing politician” infringed on the “principle of neutrality” specific to advertising management.

According to Fayard, “This constitutes a serious attack on freedom of expression. Other political figures, from all sides, have been able to benefit from poster campaigns, without suffering discrimination or unequal treatment”. “The cover of Mr. Bardella’s book, support for this communication campaign, does not contain any political position”added the publishing house.

Fayard is a subsidiary of the French book number one, Hachette Livre, which belongs to Lagardère and therefore to Vivendi, the group of conservative billionaire Vincent Bolloré. This publishing house, one of the oldest in France still in activity, took at its head in June Lise Boëll, an editor who has made a far-right polemicist and journalist from the Figaro Eric Zemmour a successful author in the 2010s.