Investigative journalist Jean-Baptiste Rivoire is assigned to the Prud’hommes by a production company of the Canal + group after having criticized the practices of his former employer Vincent Bolloré in a documentary, his lawyers said in a press release on Wednesday.
In a documentary broadcast on October 14 on social networks and produced by Reporters Without Borders, entitled System B in reference to Vincent Bolloré, the former deputy editor-in-chief of the magazine Special investigation of Canal + reviewed the methods used by the businessman, owner of several media.
“The subject of a procedure initiated by Vincent Bolloré”
A procedure has been initiated against him by the company Nulle part autre production, a subsidiary of the group, to demand the reimbursement of “a transactional indemnity which was paid to it in 2021” and the payment of 30,000 euros in damages, specify Me William Bourdon and Me Vincent Brengarth, his advice. The latter castigate an “abusive procedure” and argue that “the contractual provisions on which the company relies” in its summons constitute “a” gag clause “” aimed at “purely and simply prohibiting” the journalist from “expressing his opinion ”.
Jean-Baptiste Rivoire, “who testified precisely on these abusive procedures”, finds himself “today the subject of a procedure initiated by Vincent Bolloré”, declares Christophe Deloire, director general of Reporters Without Borders, who describes the procedure of “quite ironic” to AFP.
A “terrible news”
This is “terrible news”, commented Tuesday the principal concerned in a video published on his media Off investigation, launched in 2021. “A building fell on our head”, he confides, recalling the financial consequences such procedures. Jean-Baptiste Rivoire left the Canal + channel in 2021, after several years of tough negotiations.
The summons, revealed on Tuesday by the online media Arrêt sur images, was confirmed to AFP by Canal +, which however refuses to comment on it. The case will be examined on October 27, 2022 at the Labor Council of Boulogne-Billancourt.