Calls for a boycott have forced the association of owners of the Angoulême comics festival (FIBD) to bow, which this Thursday announced a new selection process to select future organizers of the event, in which the current delegation 9eArt +, which was widely criticized, will be excluded.
Many comic book authors and publishers threatened to boycott the 2026 edition of the festival, after the association this Saturday chose to call for “reconciliation” between the last two candidates selected for its organization starting in 2028: 9eArt + and the Cité Internationale de la Bande Dessinée et de l’Image (CIBDI).
“This choice clearly did not receive the approval of the event’s stakeholders,” said the FIBD association in a press release issued on Wednesday to Thursday evening. It said it had decided “to render the results of the competition appeal obsolete” and “included that 9eArt+ would not be extended beyond” its current contract, which expires in 2027.
Therefore, the association will “establish a steering committee intended to launch a new selection process” that will “comprise representatives of the FIBD Association, public financiers and professionals in the sector”.
Set on December 18, it should primarily “define the orientation and strategic priorities related to the next call for tenders”, the results of which will be announced on June 18, he explained. The Angoulême Festival, created in 1974, has been organized by 9eArt+ since 2007.
Financial opacity and trading “excesses”.
The last edition, at the beginning of the year, was marked by a cruel indictment of this private company, accused in the magazine l’Humanité of financial opacity, trading “excesses” and the dismissal of an employee, in 2024, who had just filed a complaint for a rape that occurred on the sidelines of the festival. A judicial investigation was opened into these facts and the young woman appealed her dismissal for “serious misconduct” – the company accused her of “behavior inconsistent” with its image – before an industrial tribunal.
In the spring, under pressure from the festival’s public funders (State and local authorities) and calls for a boycott signed by authors such as Luz or Fabcaro, the Angoulême Festival association terminated the 9eArt+ contract, opening the event’s hosting to competition starting in 2028.
In July, the historical delegation announced the withdrawal of its currently criticized director, Franck Bondoux, without giving up on submitting a project call. A joint management scenario between 9eArt+ and CIBDI, a public institution that houses the comic museum, did not succeed in extinguishing the fire.
“In danger of death”
“The Angoulême Comics Festival is in grave danger,” warned Monday the 22 winners of the Grand Prix, the festival’s highest honor, including Riad Sattouf, Lewis Trondheim, Posy Simmonds, Jacques Tardi, Art Spiegelmann and 2025 winner Anouk Ricard. “It is high time to turn the page on 9eArt+ so that the Festival can rediscover, with a new operator, the values that have built its international fame,” they added.
In a meeting, also this Monday, with the city halls of Angoulême, the agglomeration and the region of Nouvelle-Aquitaine, some twenty publishers also expressed their desire to “see Franck Boudoux go”, and “for some as it is now”, stated to AFP this Tuesday the mayor of Angoulême Xavier Bonnefont, also president of the intercommunities.
The publisher is waiting for “clarification”, “a takeover by the community”, and requested “that the continuation be carried out without 9eArt + and Franck Boudoux”, added Frédéric Vilcocq, cultural advisor of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region.
Other meetings, between lawyers and financiers, between politicians and with associations are planned this week, Xavier Bonnefont said. The festival has experienced turmoil in the past. In 2016, the publisher threatened to boycott the next edition if a “radical overhaul” of the show was “not implemented as soon as possible.” The 53rd edition of the festival is scheduled to take place from January 29 to February 1.
