Messier than ever

摘要

"The media burns what it yesterday adored." So wrote Jean-Marie Messier in his autobiography, "j6m.com", penned in 2000 at the tender age of 43. He was referring then to the implosion of the dotcom market, but he might as well have been writing about himself. The recent souring of sentiment towards Mr Messier and Vivendi Universal, the media conglomerate he runs, this week turned acid. As his company's share price tumbled, and amid management turmoil at Canal Plus, its loss-making pay-television division, the usually placid French press began tp question his survival. On April 16th, in a bid to get a grip on Canal Plus, and to the consternation of defenders of French culture, Mr Messier sacked its chief, Pierre Lescure, a popular icon of French film and television.