Last october, Reporters without Borders (RSF) published "The B System" on Youtube, a documentary describing the extension of Bolloré's media empire and his "brutal" methods. The Secretary General of Reporters Without Borders, Christophe Deloire, denounced the danger of media concentration in the hands of a tycoon who has "a conception of journalism based on servility"1 and who "systematically attacks journalists who investigate his business"2 .
Jean-Baptiste Rivoire, a former Canal+ journalist, is being sued by Nulle part ailleurs production3 for the opinion he expressed in the RSF documentary on Vincent Bolloré's methods. Christophe Deloire reacted by noting that the procedure initiated by Bolloré against Jean-Baptiste Rivoire demonstrates exactly what the RSF documentary denounces.
In this RSF documentary - which also points out that Vincent Bolloré's African activities represent a third of the group's turnover - the journalist's testimonies are edifying : "we have a huge media group that acts totally out of bounds", "it's a vision of journalism under orders", "it's total brutality, everyone agrees to describe it like that", "we realized that we were thirty or forty different journalists from different media and all sensitivities to have been attacked by Vincent Bolloré", "in a quasi-systematic way he attacks all the media and all the journalists who wish to investigate to shed light on his problematic practices"...
Jean-Baptiste Rivoire, an SNJ-CGT union member, has been denouncing for years the methods of Vincent Bolloré, who became the main shareholder of Vivendi in 2015. He cited, for instance, the censorship of a report on the Crédit Mutuel bank, whose boss, Michel Lucas, is a friend of Vincent Bolloré. The Vivendi group had sued Nicolas Vescovacci, one of the authors of the report, author of the book "Vincent tout puissant", claiming 700,000 Euros in damages. The court rejected the Vivendi group's claim and ordered it to pay 8,000 Euros in damages for abusive proceedings4 .
On his youtube channel OFF Investigation, Jean-Baptiste Rivoire announced that the OFF Investigation editorial team had decided to continue its investigations in spite of the lawsuits brought by Bolloré.