Messier: Threat to French culture?

The French fear Messier's U.S.-style management signals a break from French culture

LONDON, England (CNN) -- Jean-Marie Messier managed to turn an unglamorous water utility, the Compagnie Generale des Eaux, into Vivendi Universal -- the world's second largest media company.

So why all the fuss about Monsieur Messier?

He's seen as a charismatic leader, an American-style "personality" CEO.

But his bravado has riled many French, while massive losses at his company have failed to please investors.

Messier has been accused of overspending at the peak of the tech boom, and Vivendi Universal's share price has plummetted.

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It's down more than 30 percent this year alone, and just last month the company announced a loss of more than $12 billion -- the largest single loss in French corporate history.

But what really concerns those in his homeland is Messier's American management style.

He now lives and works in New York, and it's his relentless powerbroking across the Atlantic that leads many to think he is distancing himself from the French cultural roots of Vivendi Universal and its pay-TV arm, Canal Plus.

The French are proud of the channel, even though it's made a loss for the last five years. The channel is seen to epitomise French culture -- something the French are reluctant to put a price on.

Canal Plus not only brings football, films and music into French homes, it spends vast sums subsidising home-grown movies.

As part of the French "cultural exception," which enables France -- along with other European countries -- to protect its creative industries from U.S. competition, Canal Plus legally must spend a portion of its turnover on French productions.

Last year Canal Plus drained nearly $450 million from Vivendi Universal's cash flow, and Messier has long felt that Canal Plus's obligations to support the "cultural exception" go too far in the context of a global market.

And when he spoke out, saying, "The French cultural exception is dead," Messier caused outrage among French politicians and filmmakers.