His lawyer denounced “political censorship. Eric Zemmour claimed three million euros in damages from his former publisher Albin Michel for wrongful breach of contract, in a trial on Wednesday. In 2021, the publishing house had given up publishing a sixth book by the polemicist, France has not said its last word, after editing five others. She invoked the author’s intention to “become a politician” and “make his next book a key element of his candidacy” for the presidential election, where he was eliminated in the first round.
spelling mistakes
Eric Zemmour, via his company, SARL Rubempré, brought the case before the Paris court. He was not at the hearing. “Albin Michel is unilaterally terminating” a publishing contract signed in 2015, and this “termination is illegal,” said Arnaud de Senilhes, the lawyer for the founder of the far-right party Reconquest, in court.
“Deprived of a publisher, it was impossible to find a publisher in the time allowed to release this book on the date it wanted, in September 2021”, he underlined. “We had to invent ourselves as a publisher. Me de Senilhes noted that if it had been edited by Albin Michel, the book “would not have included a spelling error from the first page”, which “caused dozens of articles. »
A “campaign book”
The publishing house claims that Eric Zemmour did not respect the contractual deadlines, namely to submit a manuscript in 2019. However, in the spring of 2021, when no beginning of a manuscript had been transmitted, “suddenly M Zemmour tells us: it’s going to be a campaign book,” explained Albin Michel’s lawyer, Christophe Bigot. “Mr. Zemmour cannot impose that on his publisher, when the contractual deadline for delivery has expired (…) Albin Michel editions respond: no, we are not interested in that”, he added. For Albin Michel, “all of this was remote-controlled”, Eric Zemmour preferring to self-publish because “he sees the full potential of his book. »
The book sold 272,000 copies in 2021. Albin Michel estimates that instead of earning a million euros with this house, by selling 300,000 copies, the author pocketed “almost” double that by published by Rubempré editions. The procedure made it possible to learn that Eric Zemmour was assisted in the writing of his works by the historian Jacques de Saint Victor. Judgment was reserved for October 25.