While France's elections Sunday were not the victory expected by rightist parties led by Marine Le Pen, their growing number of parliamentary seats can be credited to the rise of CNews, a new conservative TV network.
In the past few years CNews, owned by 72-year-old billionaire Vincent Bolloré, has seen its viewership and influence soar.
"CNews is great," Yannick Bolloré, the billionaire's son, told the U.K.'s The Sunday Times.
"Neck-to-neck with BFMTV, a co-leader in French news, and everyone is a super-fan of CNews."
The left-leaning BFM had long been the CNN of France, dominating ratings and providing the establishment view while offering a steady diet of pro-Macron news.
But that has changed.
Bolloré's CNews hit the airwaves in 2017 and now has become France's most popular news channel with a 3.5% share of the country's total TV audience.
It had less than 1% share before the pandemic, which ultimately brought more stay-at-home viewers to the networks in France.
Now, CNews is a "mirror of society," General Director Serge Nedjar told the Times.
CNews has projected revenues of about €40 million this year and its influence was not only highlighted in the French elections or the Times' report, "How a billionaire turned his French TV channel into a force for the right."
Fortune's headlines blared a similar refrain earlier this week: "How the billionaire 'French Murdoch' Vincent Bolloré steered Le Pen's far-right to the verge of power."
France 24's headline read: "How Bolloré, the 'French Murdoch,' carried Le Pen's far-right to the brink of power.
Leftists in France concerned about the turn to the right have labeled Vincent Bolloré as "far-right."
But most pundits agree Bolloré, a practicing Catholic, espouses a more traditional cultural identity for France with economic policies more in line with the U.S. Republican party.
His son told the Times his father is a "Christian Democrat," and Bolloré had long distanced himself from Le Pen's harsh anti-immigrant policies, until this snap parliamentary election.
"It's very unfair," Yannick Bolloré said of criticism the network has faced, noting CNews' "obligation to the diversity of political opinion."
Before the French National Assembly in March, Bolloré himself rejected notions CNews presented "ideology" and "has only one objective: to serve its subscribers or its viewers."
Bolloré's objective appears to have a beneficiary: Le Pen.
Le Pen and her National Rally Party had long been subjected to tertiary status in French politics. But CNews has changed the political equation.
National Rally held just 88 seats in the 577-member Parliament before Sunday's elections, now they have 140.
These gains have set the stage for Le Pen to again be a serious contender for the French presidency with elections scheduled in 2027.
"Uniting the French right and carrying it to power has always been Bolloré's principal aim," media historian Alexis Lévrier told France 24 last month, even if he is not necessarily in the Le Pen political camp.
"Bolloré is no personal fan of the Le Pen family brand, but he has recently warmed to the party," Lévrier said, adding that the success of France's right would be "would be a personal victory for Bolloré, a vindication of what his media empire was designed to achieve."
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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