Top French TV Drama Is Behind the Scenes

One is a Saturday matinee popcorn movie replete with bare-chested musclemen, deadly swordplay, scantily attired damsels and ancient desert kingdoms vividly created through the magic of 21st century computer graphics.

The other is an irreverent Muppet-like pay television show that takes delight in skewering the French ruling class with scathing wit and nimble political humor.

Both are products of global entertainment giant Vivendi Universal.

But in their vast differences, the new action film “The Scorpion King” that hit American megaplexes this weekend and the French TV program “Les Guignols de l’Info” vividly illustrate the wide gap between Hollywood and French culture.

It is this gap that has fueled tensions between Vivendi Universal and its pay television unit, Canal Plus, sparking a protest last week that sent about 1,000 people onto the street near the Champs-Elysees, inspired passionate editorials in leading newspapers, prompted movie stars to sign petitions and worked its way into the debate leading up to today’s presidential election--all over the firing of an executive at France’s money-losing pay TV channel.

The fallout over the firing of Pierre Lescure, the chairman of Canal Plus, is expected to intensify this week, with the Vivendi annual shareholder meeting in Paris on Wednesday. Canal Plus employees are planning a strike to protest the firing of Lescure by another Frenchman, Vivendi Universal’s chairman, Jean-Marie Messier.

In some ways, the drama is a predictable reminder of the resistance to globalization that periodically surfaces in country after country as trade barriers come down. But the howl that went up in France after Messier axed Lescure is, in many ways, unique to this country, where French culture is jealously guarded and the encroachment of Hollywood movies and television is viewed with some alarm.

Indeed, the dumping of Lescure was seen as an attack on a bastion of French creativity and independence by corporate sharks--led by a fellow countryman, no less--intent on spreading crass, bottom-line materialism.

“French product and French films do well in France while other European countries are overwhelmed with Hollywood product,” said Moritz Borman, chief executive of Intermedia, a Los Angeles-based film financing company with European roots. “They see Messier as Americanizing a French institution. They view it as, ‘This Americanized person that has left us is now messing with French cinema.’ That is what everybody is worrying about.”

Canal Plus is the leading pay television channel in continental western Europe. By law, it also underwrites the French film industry, accounting for 80% of all film financing in that country.

Paradoxically, in view of the current brouhaha, it also has funded its share of the Hollywood blockbusters deplored by some of the cultural defenders most incensed by l’affaire Lescure.

Along with hundreds of French movies, Canal Plus has financed such high-profile Hollywood films as “Basic Instinct,” “JFK” and “Terminator 2: Judgment Day.”

But the emphasis in this cultural skirmish is on Canal Plus’ other endeavors.

It is known for financing films and promoting new cinematic talents. It has had recent success with home-grown French blockbusters “Amelie” and “Brotherhood of the Wolf.” It is the home of cultural fixtures such as “Les Guignols,” the program dedicated to political satire, and even owns the popular Paris St. Germain soccer team.

To Americans, the sight of employees marching on the headquarters of Vivendi a block from the Arc de Triomphe and unfurling banners that read “Messier you have had it. Canal+ is in the streets” might seem baffling. Why such outrage over the firing of a TV executive?

But in France, Lescure’s ouster could best be compared to a network firing a beloved figure like former CBS news anchor Walter Cronkite in the U.S., Borman said.

“It’s as if CBS [in Cronkite’s heyday] would have decided to just cancel Cronkite’s evening news,” explained Borman, who is German. “In that time and date, I think the American public would have reacted much more violently than it would today.”

Borman noted that within Europe, the French are the most active supporters of native film industries. Not only do they produce more home-grown movies a year than any other European country, averaging more than 100 annually, but their audience is also wide enough to support the industry--a rare feat when Hollywood movies tend to monopolize world screens. (In 2000, 46% of Hollywood studios’ revenues came from international box office sales.)

“This is a battle where they are protecting themselves against the influence and onslaught of American film and culture,” said Cedomir Kolar, a French citizen who produced this year’s Oscar-winning foreign language film “No Man’s Land.”

American director David Lynch, who is heading the jury at the upcoming Cannes Film Festival, sided with his French colleagues when he called Lescure’s exit “terrible” not only for Lescure and Canal Plus but also for diversity in film and television.

“I thought Vivendi Universal was a perfect business with, on one side, a Hollywood studio producing big budget films for the United States and overseas, and on the other side, Canal Plus, which fought for a different way of thinking,” Lynch told the Paris-based newspaper Le Monde. “Vivendi Universal had the best of both possible worlds in cinematic production. Now that’s over. We are entering an era of standardization, of assembly-line cinema. It’s the McDonald’s Universe.”

Lynch was among about 400 well-known personalities who signed a statement Wednesday in support of Lescure. They included actresses Catherine Deneuve and Juliette Binoche, director Bertrand Tavernier, soccer legend Michel Platini and various singers, rappers, athletes and former Canal Plus executives.

“For us, cultural production is something that cannot be ruled only by the market,” said Laurent Deveze, the cultural attache for the French Consulate in Los Angeles and a novelist. “When something like this happens, people are always afraid if the market is going to win the cultural field totally. That is the reason why the people are out on the streets.”

The focus of French wrath is, for the moment, Messier, whose arrival on the Hollywood scene instantly gave him mogul status but who then infuriated the French by moving to New York.

By firing Lescure, while at the same time courting American Barry Diller, who now runs the American entertainment arm of Vivendi, Messier has completed his metamorphosis into a villainous marauder, as far as many French political and cultural leaders are concerned.

As Vivendi’s finances suffered in recent months, the media here grumbled about Messier. In a society that regards unfettered capitalism and aggressive executives with distrust, he was seen as brash, acquisitive and ruthlessly obsessed with the bottom line. In short, he was too “American.”

Moreover, he is right-of-center while French journalists and cultural leaders tend to be left. A lot of the huffing and puffing expresses genuine outrage, but there is also a calculated political subtext.

And Canal Plus, while hardly a stranger to the American movie-making business, is proving to be a provocative national rallying point.

The channel, launched in 1984 as the first pay television service in France, was similar to America’s HBO.

It was considered a revolution in the staid, state-run French television world of the time. It was at first snubbed because the French were not accustomed to paying for TV, but through the political connections of founder Andre Rousselet, Canal Plus got life support from President Francois Mitterrand, who allowed the channel to show movies a year before other broadcasters.

This was an important milestone because it ushered in an agreement by which Canal Plus began to fund both French theater and films.

With French as well as American movies, children’s shows, news, talk shows, documentaries and marquee sports such as soccer, the channel became a huge cash cow because it was a monopoly pay TV service.

Its irreverent programming and political satire endeared itself to the young and trendy and quickly established Canal Plus as a cultural icon in France.

But Canal Plus grew beyond its flagship and began offering nationally tailored channels in other countries. Its expansion resulted in the financial losses that played a part in Lescure’s dismissal. It reported a loss of $439 million in 2001.

Still, it is the largest pay television provider in Europe, with 15 million subscribers in France, Belgium, Spain, Italy, Poland, the Netherlands, Scandinavia and French-speaking Africa. About a third of its customers reside in France.

In addition to being one of the biggest buyers of movies from the Hollywood studios for its channels, Canal Plus became an important source of film development funds in the U.S.

But after losing millions, Canal Plus pulled out of Hollywood for several years. And recently, its deal to finance the movie company run by onetime superagent Michael Ovitz unraveled.

Vivendi Universal grew out of a headline-grabbing business deal in December 2000, when Vivendi, a communications and utility giant, acquired Seagram Co. and its Universal Studios unit, as well as control of Canal Plus.

It was against this backdrop that Messier moved against Lescure, a former anchorman and radio personality who collects vintage records and once dated Deneuve, the actress.

After his ouster, Lescure appeared on Canal Plus in a televised mutiny. Angry staffers took over the airwaves, applauding in the studio as Lescure, on the verge of tears, said goodbye. The network then cut to a weather forecast.

During the “Guignols” show, a puppet who represents anchorman Patrick Poivre d’Arvor took a shot at Messier in defense of Lescure.

“A month ago, Jean-Marie Messier gave the chief of Canal Plus two years to overhaul the company,” the puppet said. “Two years: that is 24 months, not one month. Pierre, you aren’t going to leave the house to somebody who doesn’t even know how to count up to 24.”

The puppet then added a defiant “See you tomorrow” to Lescure.

In an editorial, Le Monde accused Messier of endangering a company that is the top financier of French cinema and, notably, a “great success in the face of the big American machines.”

The presidential candidates also weighed in. Their refrain: The channel is an almost-sacred French institution.

President Jacques Chirac, whom the “Guignols” puppets portray in a Superman costume with the name “Super-liar,” declared, “What is at stake today is the richness and diversity of our audiovisual landscape.”

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Rotella reported from Paris, and Munoz and Welkos from Los Angeles. Times staff writer Sallie Hofmeister in Los Angeles and researcher Sarah White in Paris contributed to this report.