State, department, region and city held a press conference on Thursday, increasing the grievances against the association organizing the demonstration.
Comic strips are ardently desired in Angoulême in 2026, but is it still possible? During a press conference organized in Angoulême on Thursday morning, the public funders of the Comics Festival took note of the impasse in which the event found itself and asked the organizers to give up the 2026 edition which is to be held in January.
“It is the authors, with their publishing houses, who make the festival. Without them and without festival-goers, no festival and without a festival, no public subsidy.declared Xavier Bonnefont, mayor of Angoulême. “We therefore ask the FIBD association (owner of the event) and the organizer (the company 9eArt+) to draw the conclusions that this reality imposes”he explained.
This announcement comes as the association which supervises the International Comic Strip Festival and the service provider which organizes it, contested by the profession, considered next year’s edition still possible. The day before, the Ministry of Culture had declared that it wanted to maintain the 2026 edition, scheduled for January 29 to February 2.
In a letter addressed to members of the FIBD association and published by the newspaper Free Charenteits president, Delphine Groux, considered that a cancellation “would be a disaster”castigating a “heist organized for a long time”.
“New Breath”
2026 edition or not, the Angoumois elected official is already looking towards the future. “We stand alongside the profession. I don’t see how a 2027 edition can happen with the same people. The crisis is serious and our responsibility is to ensure that we have a new operator for 2027. This must involve a new lease of life and the choice of a new operator before the summer. 2027 must be a celebration, that of renewal. There will be a profound break and I hope that this will be saving for the festival”he said.
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Overall, public funders want to save the presence of comics in Angoulême. “We’re not going to let all this go, it’s too spectacular. The Angoulême comic book festival must continue. This is a fundamental moment for Angoulême, the region and France. It’s a popular success”declared Alain Rousset, president of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region. Before bidding: “I hope that the comic strip flag will still fly over Angoulême in 2026, one way or another”.
In any case, the decision for 2026 remains in the hands of the current organizers, said Xavier Bonnefont. For several months, 9e Art+ and its director Franck Bondoux are contested from all sides for their management of the festival but also for the dismissal, in 2024, of an employee after filing a complaint for rape. Noting the “failures” of this company, the Ministry of Culture had cut its subsidy to the festival by 200,000 euros after the 2025 edition.
Without 2026 edition, “the demonstration could disappear permanently” as feared by one of the artistic directors of 9e Art+, Fausto Fasulo interviewed by Liberation. The public authorities seem to think the opposite.