| | |
| Traded as | Société par actions simplifiée |
|---|---|
| Founded | 2012 |
| Founder | David Kersan (a.k.a. David Serra) |
| Country of origin | France |
| Headquarters location | 10 rue de l'Arbalète 75005 Paris |
| Publication types | Documents, Ring Blanche, Ring Noir, Murder Ballads |
| Official website | Official website |
Ring is a French publishing company founded in 2012 by David Kersan, also known as David Serra. It publishes thrillers, novels, non-fiction and comics. It is considered to a have far-right political position [1] and publishes material from controversial authors. [2]
Ring was established in 2012 [3] in the same vein as the magazine Sur le ring. [4]
Authors published by Ring include Stéphane Bourgoin, Joël Houssin, Laurent Obertone, Zineb El Rhazoui, Frédérique Lantieri, Dominique Rizet, Philippe Verdier, Ghislain Gilberti, Norman Mailer, Jocko Willink and Marsault. [5]
In January 2016, Ring started a pocket-side collection called La mécanique générale, [6] where successful titles are reprinted after two years. In 2019, the stand of Ring at the Brussels Book Fair was vandalised. [7] [8]
Ring had a 785 000-euro revenue and a 130 000-euro benefit by late 2013, which Les Inrockuptibles stated was
an impressive number given the small catalogue — around 40 books — and small team
In 2014, revenue fell below 250 000 euros. [3]
Xavier Raufer has been involved with Ring. [3]
Scholar Pascal Durand has qualified Ring as being typical of a "neo-reactionnary" posture. [9] Libération sees Ring as a component of the Far Right, and has criticised its promotion of texts is deems to be xenophobic (La France Orange mécanique by Laurent Obertone, a compilation of crimes partially attributed to children of immigrants; Une élection ordinaire by journalist Geoffroy Lejeune, a fictional account of the election of Éric Zemmour for President of the French Republic); of climato-sceptics (such as a book by former meteo journalist Philippe Verdier). [10]
J.-L. Hippolyte, from Rutgers University-Camden, quotes a short portrait of Maurice G. Dantec, one of the star authors of Ring, by founder Serra, as being a "Christian Zionist, pro-American, anti-laic, counter-Revolutionary militant. [11]
A reporting on "the Far-Right attack on publishing", Ellen Salvi, a Mediapart journalist, states that in 2016,
within four years, it had settled in the media landscape by publishing fiction and non-fiction that was deliberately inflammatory, promoted by anxiogen advertising as well as by an aggressive usage of social media. [12]
David Serra has rejected the "Far-Right" qualification, stating that he "cares little for politics" and that "it is not because [he had] published a couple of Right-Wing authors [that he shared their opinions]. Les Inrockuptibles underlined that
the magazine Sur le ring, founded by the very same Serra, has nevertheless been quite politically oriented, as its motto states: it is about ‘‘bombing that dirty humanist atmosphere’’. "Ennemies" are angrily listed: ‘‘Altermondialists, rappers, feminists, antiracists, bobos’’… [3]