The Angoulême comics festival is under threat of cancellation as the support for this coming festival has tanked while calls for boycotts have increased. The issue is over claims of toxic management and the dismissal of a staff member who had lodged a rape complaint. She was fired after going to the police to report the rape during the 2024 festival. The public prosecutor’s office has opened an investigation into the complaint and she has taken her case to the Paris industrial tribunal to contest her dismissal.

Cultural minister Rachida Dati said €200,000 (£176,000, $231,000) of public subsidies were being withdrawn from the festival and invited those boycotting it to a meeting. She also said it was hard to see the festival happening in January with the boycott:

Realistically, if there are no authors or publishers, it’s hard to see how the festival can happen in 2026. We are at a turning point in the history of the festival, which is in difficulty and in danger.

The festival, first held in 1974, has been managed by 9eArt+ since 2007 even though it is a non-profit. Franck Bondoux the most recent director of 9eArt announced he would step down last week. 9eArt’s contract was recently renewed only inflaming tensions further.

Hundreds have said they would “girlcott” the festival in support of the staffer along with numerous high profile publishers. Nine organizations and unions representing authors and illustrators have said they will not attend January’s event. They want the festival to no longer be managed by 9eArt+ with a focus on rebuilding its values.

The French national publishing union emphasized that it too believed the likelihood of the festival going on as planned is unlikely:

Given this large-scale movement [to boycott], which they understand, publishers believe the 2026 edition can no longer go ahead.

There are worries the canceling of the event would be an economic catastrophe for the local area it is held. The festival attracts over 200,000 visitors each year.

The organizers have said the event will take place:

We remain hopeful that ongoing discussions will lead to a solution for the 2026 edition to take place, in defence of the comic ecosystem’s interest and out of respect for a passionate audience.

In August, nearly 400 artists and 12 associations signed a petition to boycott the 2026 Angoulême International Comics Festival. The issue is the festival’s management company, 9eArt+. The company is accused of retaliating against a female employ who reported a rape at the 2024 event that was revealed after an investigation by L’Humanité magazine. The individuals and associations called for the festival to open the management contract to an open RFP or face a boycott of the upcoming festival. Four of the last five Grand prix winners: Anouk Ricard (2025), Posy Simmonds (2024), Julie Doucet (2022), Chris Ware (2021), as well as notable American cartoonists: Art Spiegelman (Grand prix 2011) and Alison Bechdel signed the petition. There was over 2,200 signatures on it in total.

Now, things have gotten even worse for the festival. Franck Bondoux and 9e Art+ won the contract to keep it managing the show for a nine-year term after their contract ends in 2027. That would keep them in place until 2036. 9Art+ will have to work in partnership with the Cité internationale de la bande dessinée et de l’image (International City of Comics and Images) to organize the festival starting in 2028. A proposal between the two must be submitted by November 20 2025. Cité internationale de la bande dessinée et de l’image is a non-profit and has bristled at the idea of working with 9e Art+ but a joint bid was pushed by the festival in the final hours of the process. Their management is at the center of the complaints by publishers and attendees.

With that, publishers, creators, and more have pulled out of the show starting with 2026’s festival which takes place January 29 to February 1, 2026. Over forty publishers have withdrawn from the upcoming show. Over twenty Grand Prize winners released a statement calling for “rapid and profound change in the management of the festival.”

The Angoulême Comics Festival is in mortal danger.

For years, the Festival has been plagued by scandals, communication blunders, and a lack of ambition, all shrouded in complete opacity in its management. This decline is seriously damaging the entire industry.

Comics, however, need this event, which has become an essential meeting place for authors, publishers, the media, and of course, readers.

As calls for a boycott multiply, the Grand Prix winners say with one voice that it is high time to turn the page on 9th ^Art + so that the Festival can rediscover, with new operators, the values ​​that built its international reputation.

Without a rapid and profound change, the 2026 edition is very likely to be the last.

Signatories :
Florence Cestac
Régis Loisel
Philippe Dupuy
Charles Berberian
Martin Veyron
Art Spiegelman
Jean-Claude Denis
François Boucq
Chris Ware
Franck Margerin
Jacques Tardi
François Schuiten
Baru
Blutch
Willem
Lewis Trondheim
Riad Sattouf
Hermann Huppen
Max Cabanes
Anouk Ricard
Posy Simmonds
Julie Doucet

Alternative publishers group Syndicat des éditeurs alternatifs (SEA) released their own statement:

The Angoulême International Comics Festival (FIBD) is therefore once again demonstrating its disregard for the opinions of others, and it is indeed 9e Art+, and only 9e Art+, that retains absolute control of the festival. 
This is a clear case of private interests taking over an event that has long been a matter of public interest , regardless of what Delphine Groux, the FIBD’s president, may think.

The SEA warns that if the voices of artists and publishing houses are not taken seriously, the consequences will be significant and likely irreversible. Starting in 2026. Then in 2027. And perhaps forever. Many publishing houses at the SEA have already cancelled their booths for the 2026 edition; others will soon follow suit.

They’re calling for resignations from leadership among other demands.

The Syndicat national de l’édition (SNE) has released its own statement that it will end its relationship with the festival in 2027. The SNE represents multiple publishers.

With charges of corruption in the process, leadership that’s out of touch and not listening to the participants, and rising tensions, expect this to only escalate in the coming months.

Courtesy of The Daily Cartoonist, nearly 400 artists and 12 associations have signed a petition to boycott the 2026 Angoulême International Comics Festival. The issue is the festival’s management company, 9eArt+. The company is accused of retaliating against a female employ who reported a rape at the 2024 event that was revealed after an investigation by L’Humanité magazine. The individuals and associations are calling for the festival to open the management contract to an open RFP or face a boycott of the upcoming festival.

Four of the last five Grand prix winners: Anouk Ricard (2025), Posy Simmonds (2024), Julie Doucet (2022), Chris Ware (2021), as well as notable American cartoonists: Art Spiegelman (Grand prix 2011) and Alison Bechdel have signed the petition. There’s over 2,200 signatures on it in total.

You can see the full list of signatories as well as join the petition here.

WE WILL NOT GO TO ANGOULÊME!

For several months, we, comic book professionals, authors, and other workers in the field, have been calling on the Angoulême FIBD Association to address the harmful nature of the contract it has had with the company 9eArt+ for nearly 20 years.

A company whose managerial practices have been questioned in several press articles, including an investigation by L’Humanité magazine that revealed the dismissal of an employee after she reported a rape during the 51st edition.

At the last ADBDA meeting on April 3, the FIBD Association discussed the possibility of terminating the contract it has with the company 9eArt+, but it has not expressed a desire to submit the festival’s management to an impartial call for projects. On the contrary, it seems to want to finalize its plan to merge into a simplified joint-stock company (SAS) with 9eArt+, which would, in effect, become the unlimited manager of the festival.

We want to firmly remind the FIBD Association that if, in more than 50 years of existence, the Angoulême festival has become an essential comic book event, it is thanks to the people who bring it to life and who animate it: comic book workers, authors, publishers, translators, journalists and critics… and of course the readers, through their loyalty to this event.
It now belongs to the community and, as such, it has become an event of public interest for the survival of our medium. It would therefore be unacceptable to constrain it with personal interests or authoritarian choices.

It would be unacceptable for the management of this event to be entrusted again for another decade, or even longer, and without consulting the parties who make up its vitality and diversity, to a company that raises many questions about its prerogatives.

Faced with this blindness and this obstinacy, faced with this unbearable appropriation and faced with the contempt shown towards our repeated calls, WE, comic book workers, inform the FIBD Association, as well as all its partners, public and private, that if it does not decide to denounce this contract in due form and to make a call for projects for the management of the festival, we will call for a massive boycott of the next edition of the festival in 2026.

Without us, this edition will be an empty shell!