Coralie Piton, then director of strategy at the Fnac-Darty group, in Paris, March 13, 2017 (AFP / THOMAS SAMSON)
A “manager” to succeed a “left-wing boss”: the Seuil publishing house appointed Coralie Piton, formerly of Fnac and Canal+, as its new head on Tuesday, and is parting ways with Hugues Jallon.
Ms. Piton, 47, will have to straighten out the accounts of this prestigious subsidiary, a publishing house for left-wing authors such as Edouard Louis, Chloé Delaume and Alain Mabanckou.
According to concordant sources, the group criticized its predecessor, also known for his left-wing commitment, for unsatisfactory results.
“We are certain that Coralie Piton will bring her knowledge of the publishing world but also her energy, her vision, her passion to the service of her teams and her authors, to prepare the future of Seuil”, indicated the general director of Média-Participations, Julien Papelier, quoted in the press release.
Ms. Piton “will take up her duties at the beginning of September,” he added.
The new boss of Seuil previously ran La Chouette Radio, manufacturer of Merlin, an educational connected speaker for children, launched by Radio France and the publisher Bayard Jeunesse.
Prior to that, she held various positions within the management of the Canal+ television group, then headed the books division within the Fnac distribution group. She began her career as a consultant at McKinsey.
“Media-Participations was looking for a manager profile,” a source familiar with the progress of the case told AFP in June.
The source added that Mr Jallon’s departure followed a series of internal problems, including restructuring measures that did not all convince the parent company and which sometimes deteriorated the working atmosphere.
– “Worrying signals” –
Writer and publisher Hugues Jallon in Paris, February 13, 2018 (AFP / JOEL SAGET)
Hugues Jallon, 54, has been managing Seuil since 2018. This specialist in humanities publishing had arrived from a competing publishing house, La Découverte.
He is known for his left-wing views, visible among other things in the works he has signed as an author. The latest, in 2023, is a novel ironically titled “Le Capital, c’est ta vie” (Verticales editions).
An internal source at the publishing house told AFP in May that Mr. Jallon was being pushed out, confirming information from the online media La Lettre.
In an editorial, Le Nouvel Obs considered that it was “difficult not to worry” about the imminent departure of this “left-wing boss”.
“How can we not include it in the series of worrying little signals that are multiplying in the media, at university or among Seuil’s competitors, outlining a slow but constant shift to the right of the intellectual field?” wrote the weekly.
The sector was marked by the acquisition in 2023 of the French number one, Hachette Livre, by the Vivendi group, owned by the conservative billionaire Vincent Bolloré.
However, Mr. Jallon was not unanimous among his colleagues.
Example: he was unable to prevent the founder of the Sous-Sol editions, Adrien Bosc, from leaving the group with his entire company at the start of 2024 to join a rival, the French number two in publishing Editis, sold by Vivendi.
The recruitment in 2023 of Maud Simonnot as director of French fiction at Seuil led the following year to the departure of a respected editor within the house, Frédéric Mora. After more than 20 years of loyalty, he also joined Editis, and more precisely Julliard editions.
A newcomer to the publishing sector, Ms. Piton will have to quickly learn the customs of a milieu proud of its traditions. And in particular, to skillfully plead for Seuil authors before the juries of major literary prizes.