In the context of the Désarmons Bolloré campaign, and following in the footsteps of the boycott called for by « libraires antifascistes », we, independent publishers, are collectively co-publishing this collection to contribute from our sector to the general debate on dismantling the Bolloré empire.
The contributions highlight the thinking of researchers, printers, publishers and booksellers who analyse and/or experience the dynamics of market concentration and extreme right-wing tendencies. Each contributor attempts to formulate, from their respective positions, answers to this urgent question: how can we confront authoritarian liberalism in the world of books?
As independent publishers, we are indirectly targeted by Bolloré’s totalising project because our structures are spaces that allow for the creation of counter-narratives and the circulation of minority voices. Faced with large monopolistic groups that filter narratives, we must fight to preserve these essential spaces of resistance, which—despite what the prophets of the ‘great replacement’ and believers in the ‘LGBTQ+ lobby’ may say—are becoming increasingly rare.
The form of this collection is based on the following observation: if Vincent Bolloré alone is capable of mobilising colossal logistical and media resources to wage his ‘war of civilisation’, then we must, for our part, mobilise our entire network of publishers, distributors, booksellers and media outlets to resist it. Faced with concentration by large groups, let us leverage the diversity and uniqueness that characterise the world of independent publishing.
Through Hachette, Bolloré is a major player in the capitalistic concentration of the publishing industry, but he is not the only instigator of this dynamic. It is the very structure of the book world that allows large groups to corner 90% of the publishing market. We have therefore decided to ‘overwhelm Bolloré’, that is to say, to look beyond the admittedly exuberant figure of the man himself in order to understand, first, the mechanisms by which he operates and, second, how to thwart them from our position as players in the independent publishing industry. To this end, we have brought together a collection of contributions from publishers, booksellers, authors, fair organisers, academics, activists, and others.
