Arnaud Lagardere, CEO of the Lagardere group, arrives to take part in his hearing before the committee of enquiry into media concentration at the French Senate in Paris on February 17, 2022.

French media baron Arnaud Lagardère, who resigned from running the sprawling group of the same name in April over embezzlement charges, was reinstated as chief executive on Friday, June 28, after a favorable court decision, the company said.

Lagardere, who sold the firm built by his father to media giant Vivendi in November, had been temporarily barred from holding management positions over alleged misuse of corporate funds at some of his companies not belonging to Lagardère group. Now he has secured the “partial lifting of the ban measure” in a court ruling, Largardère SA said in a statement.

A judicial source confirmed to Agence France-Presse (AFP) that the 63-year-old is within his rights to return to the top seat, despite being charged with embezzlement. It was “a very great joy for me to resume as chief executive of the group that bears my name,” Largardère himself said in the statement.

As well as thanking other company chiefs, he added a special note of gratitude to “our shareholders, and particularly the largest among them, the Bolloré family.”

Billionaire Vincent Bolloré, owner of a news station dubbed France’s Fox News among other conservative outlets, controls Lagardère SA’s owner Vivendi and is a close friend of Lagardère himself.

The November sale of the company to Vivendi completed the gradual erosion of the group Lagardère inherited from his father Jean-Luc in 2003. Once a vast empire from publishing to aerospace, Lagardère SA still operates the profitable Relay chain of airport and train station stores, airport duty-free shops and major performance venues.

Its media operations include radio station Europe 1, Sunday paper Le Journal du dimanche and France’s top book publisher Hachette.

Le Monde with AFP

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