Nothing is going well in the Bayard publishing and press group. Appointed chairman of the board of Bayard at the beginning of November, the new boss François Morinière hired, three weeks later, a number 2, Alban du Rostu as director of strategy and development. The outcry was immediate. Staff and unions are upset that the thirty-year-old, formerly of McKinsey, worked for three years alongside the very conservative and liberal Pierre-Edouard Stérin. Mobilization of unions, threats of strike, resignation of the authors, the bronca electrifies. And management is backing down. A week after his recruitment, Alban du Rostu must give up taking his position. On this occasion, the management of Bayard announced that it would resell the stake it had taken in the purchase of the Paris School of Journalism, alongside Vincent Bolloré, Bernard Arnault, the Dassault group and Rodolphe Saadé. For the first time, the dismissed director returns to his forced departure. Interview.
L’Express: Your recruitment as director of strategy and development of the Bayard group was announced on November 25. A week later, faced with strong union mobilization, management decided not to hire you. What state of mind are you in?
Alban du Rostu: I did not imagine that it would be in a Christian group that I would be criticized for being Christian, and in a group that addresses the entire population that I would be criticized for having worked with a right-wing entrepreneur. Being ousted from a position against my will, after a long selection process, the signing of an employment contract and under pressure from unions and teams who refuse to meet with me on the pretext that opinions are attributed to me other people, isn’t that discrimination? In the past I worked for Emmanuel Macron’s cabinet at the Elysée and now I was delighted to join a group whose certain titles are rather marked on the left because I am absolutely convinced that in the situation of opposition of generalized conflicts of our society, it is urgent to build bridges and bring people together by overcoming divisions. Unfortunately some prefer division, ad-personam attacks and refuse dialogue. From a global perspective I am very concerned about what this says about our society. It is urgent to pull ourselves together collectively otherwise we are heading towards confrontation.
Why do you think you were chosen for this position of strategy director?
I was recruited after a long process of around ten interviews and references by one of the main executive headhunting firms. The main reason is the fact that after starting my career in mergers and acquisitions and at McKinsey, I made around fifty investments as an investor, including more than twenty in sectors that could have represented areas of development for Bayard: immersive museums to bring culture closer to all audiences, immersive and virtual reality exhibitions to provide new ways of learning, film production studios, production company and distribution on social networks as well as half a dozen media digital on cultural and educational subjects. By recruiting me, Bayard was choosing to fully take this shift towards new growth markets. Furthermore, my numerous associative commitments, particularly in international solidarity and in the world of the street, demonstrated humanist values close to what seemed to me to be Bayard’s DNA.
Bayard is going through difficulties, what was your project?
The company faces major challenges which require rapid action: falling birth rate which impacts sales of children’s publications, increasingly early digitalization, rising production costs, reduction in Christian readership and overall tension on the subscription model. My project was twofold: accelerate the transformation of existing assets, particularly in terms of digitalization, and make new acquisitions in the fast-growing sectors of cultural entertainment (immersive, audiovisual, virtual reality) to bring Bayard’s DNA to life through other mediations. Unfortunately some conservatisms seem to prefer the status quo to be certain that nothing changes.
The six unions of the Bayard group argued that your professional career was “likely to damage” the image of their company. Clearly, they accuse you of having been the right arm of Pierre-Edouard Stérin, a conservative and liberal entrepreneur, for three years. Do you understand their concern?
Pierre-Edouard Stérin is a great entrepreneur and a great investor. By managing one of its investment structures, I was able to make numerous high-quality acquisitions both in terms of positive impact and financial performance. Is it customary to criticize a job candidate for the political opinions of previous employers? Do we ask Free employees about the opinions of Xavier Niel or LVMH about those of Bernard Arnault? They are always great entrepreneurs and their opinions are not necessarily those of their employees. Beyond these opinions, I regret that these unions did not accept my various exchange proposals, bearing witness once again to this evil which affects our society: fear rather than exchange.
In fact, you were the general director of the Common Good Fund. This fund supports cultural and associative projects far from “social Catholicism”, which the Bayard group claims to be, right?
This is where the situation is most dishonest. Several dozen projects created or supported by the Common Good Fund have been the subject of around fifteen extremely positive articles in The Cross And Pilgrimtitles from the Bayard group, for example when we launched the Parliamentarians’ Maraude to serve soup and coffee to the homeless with MPs from all parties, or even on our projects in heritage or culture. Without, of course, counting projects like those surrounding Pope Francis’ visit to Marseille. These projects brought together interlocutors and participants of all tendencies and I refute the idea that there are irreconcilable camps.
“Pierre-Edouard Stérin is what we call a “serial entrepreneur””
In your role as general director of the Common Good Fund, you participated in the launch of the Périclès project, dear to Pierre-Edouard Stérin, a political project which aims to train and support right-wing and far-right candidates. We can understand that this is indeed far from the positions of the daily La Croix…
Pierre-Edouard Stérin is what we call a “serial entrepreneur” who is constantly launching new projects. To convey his liberal and conservative opinions, he wanted to launch a project with a more political aim including a training component for political personnel… As his partner in one of his activities, he asked me as he often did to discuss the vision or the team. However, I wanted, for personal reasons, not to take an active role in this project of which I am neither founder nor administrator, and the official statutes recently revealed by the press clearly prove that my name is not there.
By announcing your departure, the Bayard Presse group also declared that it would no longer invest in the purchase of the Paris School of Journalism alongside Vincent Bolloré. Were you involved in this investment decision?
I was not associated with this operation which I discovered in the press. I understand that around ten entrepreneurs and companies are present in this round table, which seems to demonstrate a project aimed at bringing people together widely. However, the media and political focus has been on the differences within the group rather than on the points of convergence and the desire to work together. The Bayard group withdrew from the project. It is not my place to comment on it.
The staff of a company, owned by a Catholic religious congregation, the Augustinians of the Assumption, are demanding the departure of a director on the grounds that he is a right-wing Catholic. Does this mean that among Catholics too, we no longer know how to work together?
I could never have imagined that it was in a group that held high the values of tolerance and openness that I could suffer such sectarianism. The Christian world, like society as a whole, must in my opinion overcome these sterile oppositions which exist only to divide. The rumor, the crowd, the caricatures or false information, the media excitement and social networks… all the ingredients of division manifested themselves in just a few days. Beyond my personal case, it is urgent that we pull ourselves together and come together to avoid the breakdown of society. In this spirit, in the coming weeks I would like to launch a broad initiative aimed at overcoming these sterile divisions to invite those who wish to choose dialogue and exchange.
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