A great publicity stunt at low cost. As expected, the advertising campaign proposed by the publishing house Fayard, a subsidiary of Hachette Livre, in favor of the next book by the president of the National Group, Jordan Bardella, will not appear on French radio stations. Mediatransports, the company that manages the advertising posters in SNCF stations and the Paris metro, received the campaign visual before making a decision on Monday, October 28. Fayard wanted to expose the cover of the book in 4 x 3 meters: a portrait of the far-right politician crossed out with the title of the work, what I’m looking for. Applying to the letter its general conditions of sale, the agency rejected this proposal from a subsidiary of the leading French publishing house, now owned by billionaire Vincent Bolloré.
“We consider that this campaign had a political nature, to the extent that Jordan Bardella is a European deputy and president of the National Group”, We explain it to you at Mediatransports. The title of the work shows, according to the direction, that it is not just an autobiographical story. However, the company is “obliged to guarantee a principle of political and religious neutrality, due to its public service missions”we specify from the same source.
SUD-Rail had preemptively opposed such a massive poster campaign project, planned for sixty-seven stations in Paris and Ile-de-France and forty-three large stations in other regions, between November 25 and December 17. In mid-October, the union recalled that the far-right party “It was created by the Waffen-SS, collaborators of the Vichy regime and members of the OAS [Organisation armée secrète, pro-Algérie française ] ».
Secret communications plan
For his part, Bardella, whose book will be published on November 9 with a large circulation (150,000 copies), expressed his “deep indignation” and asked SNCF – joint owner of Mediatransports with RATP – to “return to this unacceptable act of censorship, which undermines their duty of neutrality.” However, other publishers that publish political works never offer this type of poster campaigns, knowing full well that they will not comply with the company’s general sales conditions, explains Mediatransports. Fayard still tried his luck when the project was going to be rejected, making noise in the process.
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