The longest-running festival for French-language comic books risks being cancelled next year amid a boycott by hundreds of authors as well as major publishers in an ongoing row.
Major Belgian bande déssinée companies, such as Dupuis and Le Lombard (the latter of Tintin fame), are among the publishers to have announced their withdrawal from the upcoming Festival International de la Bande Dessinée.
The convention has been held in the small town of Angoulême, in the south-west of France, since 1974. It is attended by around 200,000 fans of comic books each year, and its 52nd edition was due to kick off at the end of January.
However, a series of controversies involving 9ᵉ Art+, the company which has been tasked with organising the five-day fair since 2007, has plunged the festival into chaos.
An open letter signed by 22 former winners of the festival's Grand Prix, including last year's winner Anouk Ricard, insisted that the festival needed to "turn the page". It said that the festival has been "piling up scandals, communication errors and a lack of ambition, all amid a total lack of transparency in its management." The letter was published in French outlet L'Humanité at the start of the month.
Calls for a 'girlcott'
An investigation carried out at the start of the year, found instances of "toxic management" and nepotism within the company. In particular, the publication reported that a female member of staff was dismissed for “serious misconduct” after lodging a complaint in which she accused a colleague of rape.
Another letter of support, signed by 285 female comic book authors and published last week, has called for a "girlcott" of the festival. The defendant has denied the allegations, while the festival management has insisted that her dismissal had nothing to do with her accusation.
Despite the controversies, a contract renewal was initially awarded to 9ᵉ Art+. However, it now operates in partnership with the association that runs the Angoulême comic books museum. Following the calls for a boycott, the festival reopened the call for tenders for a new company to take charge from 2027.
Franck Bondoux, the director and founder of 9ᵉ Art+, has offered to step aside, all the while dismissing the accusations of mismanagement.
"I hope that everything will calm down," he told Le Parisien earlier this month. "I will take a step back, including on operational matters," Bondoux added, before insisting that his company would remain in charge of the logistics of the festival over the next two years.
No public funding
In the wake of the controversy, the French government has withdrawn €200,000 in subsidies due to "shortcomings over transparency obligations", making a major dent in the festival's finances. "
The authors, along with their publishing houses, are the ones who make the festival happen," the Angoulême mayor Xavier Bonnefont explained in a press conference. "Without them and without the festival-goers, there is no festival, and without a festival, there can be no public funding."
France's culture minister Rachida Dati has nevertheless opened the door to re-establishing the festival's full public funding if all parties reach an agreement, telling Ouest-France that the event could be "rebuilt alongside the authors and publishers, with a renewed management and governance."
A joint statement by several artists' collectives and trade unions, published last week by Libération, reiterated that the boycott would go ahead given that 9ᵉ Art+ is still involved.
According to the comic book authors, the Angoulême controversy "encapsulates many of the problems of our time: gender-based and sexual violence, autarkic governance, widespread contempt for workers, including volunteers, commercial exploitation, and ableism."
The French editors' union then released a statement of their own, asserting that the Angoulême festival could not go ahead given the "large-scale protest" to come.
Responding to Ouest-France, the festival organisers have continued to dismiss the prospect of the event being called off. Tensions remain despite Bondoux's offer to step down, with authors and publishers alike calling for bigger changes to be made to the event.
