Globalization? C’est Magnifique!

By buying the Canadian-American conglomerate Seagram, which includes Universal Studios, the French company Vivendi completes its transformation from a water utility and construction business to a global powerhouse in communication and entertainment. Its stated goal is to deliver movies, music and information over computers, new-generation cell phones-cum-communicators and cable. Investors have their doubts that the $34-billion deal will work, but no matter its economic outcome, the acquisition might serve another purpose--smoothing some Gallic feathers over what the French see as America’s world economic and cultural domination.

France makes no bones about equating globalization with an American drive to take over the world. To battle what’s seen as American cultural imperialism, the French government pushed for European Union limits on broadcasting of U.S. television productions. Even the French language had to be protected from the rise of the Internet and the onslaught of new communication technology--much of it coming from across the Atlantic--with draconian restrictions on the use of English.

Now that the French are joining the global economy on a big scale, they will surely find out that the problems this poses are the same on both sides of the ocean. Vivendi Chairman Jean-Marie Messier will have to penetrate the insular world of Hollywood movies and make a multifaceted business work. French authorities will have to worry about undue domination of media markets by those who produce and deliver the content. They are likely to find those problems very similar in English or French.