Chapter 928: Strong presence in the French media

After Xia Yu's secret meeting with François Mitterrand on the island, he contacted George Berkeley in London as soon as he returned to Hong Kong and instructed him to immediately carry out a series of actions in France.

The task was clear: to expand influence on French public opinion and help François Mitterrand in his campaign.

And the most urgent task at the time was to make a film satirising the incumbent French President, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing. In order to start shooting and have a smooth screening, it was necessary to have a film and cinema company that would absolutely obey orders.

George Berkeley had someone collect information on the French film and cinema market and faxed it to Xia Yu in secret. In the end, Xia Yu identified a target for acquisition, which was Pathé, one of the five major film companies in France.

It was Pathé Films, not the later-day, highly-renowned Pathé Records.

The reason Pathé Films was acquired by Xia Yu as one of the top five French film companies is thanks to Hollywood's encroachment on the French film market, which resulted in the 150 local film companies in France only being able to occupy half of the domestic film market. Therefore, even though Pathé Films was one of the top five French film companies, its value was not particularly high and was not enough to compete with the Hollywood Big Eight!

At first, Xia Yu was also interested in acquiring France's most famous Gaumont Film Company, but then George Berkeley collected data and analysed that Gaumont Film Company could not be fully acquired for the time being. At most, only a part of the shares could be acquired, and it would be very risky to execute the plan.

The reason is that Gaumont Film Company is a subsidiary of the French media and advertising giant Havas Group, and Havas Group is in turn a semi-state-owned entity, with the French government holding a portion of the equity.

Xia Yu also coveted Havas, a formidable media giant and one of the world's top six advertising and media groups.

During World War II, the Vichy government in France ordered Havas to separate its news business from its advertising business, and the independent news business became Agence France-Presse. This shows the strength of the Havas Group.

Unfortunately, the French government currently owns a portion of the company's shares, so there is nothing we can do but wait for the privatisation wave in France in a few years and then take our chance.

Fortunately, Pathé is not much inferior to Gaumont. Founded in 1896, Pathé was once the leader of the film industry in France and even the world. Although it has declined now, its heritage of more than 80 years still remains.

Pathé is not only an old film production company, but also one of the top five film distribution companies in France. It owns 182 cinemas with a total of 215 screens, accounting for 4.7% of the market share of cinemas in France, second only to Gaumont's 5.1%.

However, Pathé is a company that has been around for more than 80 years, and like any old company, it has had several owners over the years, and control of the company has long since passed out of the hands of the founding family.

This is actually a good thing for Xia Yu, who is looking to buy.

With the active mediation of François Mitterrand, and in the face of the rising offer from the French branch of the Mirror Group under the Bright Fund, in the end, all of the top five major shareholders bowed to the franc offensive.

After securing the major shareholders, the other minority shareholders were of little concern. With the full support of the French Socialist Party, it took just over 20 days for Pathé, one of the five major French film companies, to change hands quietly. François Mitterrand went to great lengths to keep the takeover secret, so there was little coverage in the media.

After the acquisition of Pathé, a film called 'Destyne, the Lonely Man' was quickly and secretly commissioned.

And the French branch of the Mirror Group immediately invested ten million US dollars in Pathé Films to acquire cinemas in other major French cities. Within just two months, the number of cinemas had increased to 238 and the number of screens to 269, occupying 6.2% of the cinema market and surpassing Gaumont Films in one fell swoop to create the largest film distribution network in France.

And according to François Mitterrand's grand plan to help François Mitterrand, movies were just one part of it.

After buying Pathé, the French branch of the Mirror Group once again launched a franc offensive with a list of newspapers provided by François Mitterrand that supported the positions of the right-wing parties in France.

In fact, Xia Yu would prefer to acquire a TV station or radio station, but after investigation, he unfortunately discovered that, compared to France's encouragement and laissez-faire attitude towards the newspaper and magazine industries, it strictly controls TV and radio stations, and now does not allow the establishment of private radio and television stations at all.

Xia Yu could only secretly hope that François Mitterrand would relax controls on radio and television stations after he came to power. In reality, he wasted no time and let George Berkeley do all the work of buying right-wing newspapers.

Compared to buying a politically neutral newspaper, buying a right-wing newspaper would have a doubly weakening effect.

With 56 million dollars spent in three months, the French subsidiary of the Mirror Group increased the number of newspapers it owned from 8 to 59 and also acquired a major periodical publishing group, which owns France's largest daily newspaper, Le Figaro.

In order to help the Mirror Group acquire these newspapers, François Mitterrand made great efforts and used almost all of his contacts from decades in politics.

However, the Mirror Group did not disappoint François Mitterrand. After months of negotiations, in January of this year, as the presidential election approached, the media across France gradually focused on politics, and the Mirror Group finally began to exert its influence, with more and more positive reports about François Mitterrand and questioning of Giscard d'Estaing's performance and policies.

In France, in addition to the subsidiaries of the Mirror Group, Xia Yu also owns a top five newspaper giant, the Hachette Publishing Group, which is affiliated with the Jiuding Book Publishing Company. Under Xia Yu's instructions, the newspapers under this publishing group also took the same stance as François Mitterrand.

With continuous financial support, François Mitterrand and the Socialist Party under his control held rallies and speeches at all costs, carrying out various political activities and being very active.

François Mitterrand's political activities, which had mostly focused on the French Communist Party, made Giscard d'Estaing wary and he saw François Mitterrand as a thorn in his side.

In particular, every time François Mitterrand launched a political campaign, a film called 'Lone D'Estaing' would be shown, and Pathé Films would release it for free. After watching it once, Giscard d'Estaing was furious at home and even made his beloved granddaughter cry.

But since his aim in running for president was to unseat Giscard D'Estaing from the presidency, François Mitterrand paid no attention to Giscard D'Estaing's hostility and even mocked him when they met in private.

As February approached, the Mirror Group secretly conducted a public opinion survey. The results were not made public, but only told to François Mitterrand. The results were also reported to George Berkeley, who then passed them on to Xia Yu.

It was only then that Xia Yu learned about the latest situation in the French election.

The secret public opinion survey showed that François Mitterrand's approval rating was five percentage points higher than that of the incumbent President, Giscard d'Estaing!

The public's dissatisfaction with Giscard d'Estaing's administration is over 50%!

The effect is extremely significant!

As long as the results of the second round of voting in early May remain stable, then with François Mitterrand taking power, Xia Yu's situation in France will be completely opened up.

By then, it will be time to take revenge on the Rothschild family!

Xia Yu has always remembered the series of insidious acts of the Rothschild family before, and he is not willing to let it go without retaliation and biting the Rothschild family a piece of flesh!