Investors have long queried the strategic rationale for French billionaire Vincent Bolloré’s industry-spanning conglomerates. Now the French judiciary is starting to ask questions too.
Prosecutors are investigating whetherBolloré Group, the listed family company of which Mr. Bolloré is chairman and chief executive, bribed politicians in Africa by offering them reduced-price public relations through ad agency group Havas, which it controlled at the time. The suspicion is that, in return, another Bolloré division won contracts...