Paris (France) (AFP) – Novelist Virginie Despentes, one of Grasset's emblematic authors, compared Wednesday the dismissal of the publishing house's CEO, Olivier Nora, to an act of "predation" perpetrated by conservative billionaire Vincent Bolloré.

Published on: 04/22/2026 - 5:59 p.m.

In a video posted by "La Grande Libraire", the France 5 literary program which will be broadcast on Wednesday evening, the writer explains why she signed, with some 200 other authors, a petition denouncing the decision of the Hachette group, controlled by Vincent Bolloré, to dismiss the boss who has managed Grasset for 26 years.

“It’s not a war, it’s predation. If it’s the same word as when it comes to sexual predation, it’s because it’s the same mechanism: abusing one’s power to strip another of their humanity,” she declares in this short video.

“In a situation of predation, criticism of the attitude of those who are attacked is always a legitimization of those who attack,” adds the author of “Baise-moi”, who published most of her books with Grasset, including “Vernon Subutex” and “Cher connard”.

Virginie Despentes also reacts to Vincent Bolloré's column published last weekend in the Journal du Dimanche, where he denounced "the uproar" of a "small caste". "I'm speaking to those who say: 'they're bourgeois, it's good for them' - I say, that's comparable to saying 'her skirt was too short, and she should have smiled less, and if that happens to her, it's because she deserves it'," she says.

“Authors are not all bourgeois, readers are not all bourgeois, literature does not belong to the bourgeoisie. Even if it bothers the far right, it’s like that: bookstores are not luxury stores,” she adds.

Virginie Despentes also supports the action taken by the authors to recover their rights to their novels published by Grasset. “We want to save all our books, and that any author can say: I take everything back, my text will not have the same cover as that of the publisher of (Jordan) Bardella”, the president of the National Rally, who published two books by Fayard, another Hachette house.

© 2026 AFP

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