France’s Angoulême International Comics Festival (FIBD – Festival international de la bande dessinée d’Angoulême) is among the world’s foremost comic book events, but its survival is now hanging by a thread after a monthslong dispute over its governance.
Organisers have now decided to cancel the festival’s 2026 edition. The event “will realistically not be able to take place under suitable conditions,” lawyers for organising company 9e Art + said in a statement, which was first reported by local newspaper La Charente Libre.
The 53rd edition was supposed to be held from 29 January to 1 February 2026.
9e Art + blamed the cancellation on the FIBD’s public partners, who withdrew their subsidies in November.
Public funders “have continually interfered in the management of this event, in spite of its private character, with the clear intention of ousting its long-standing organiser,” the company said.
Created in 1974, the festival has been managed by 9e Art + since 2007. The company and its director Franck Bondoux are at the very centre of the crisis plaguing the entire French comic book ecosystem.
Over the past decade, controversies and accusations of financial mismanagement have dealt a heavy blow to the event’s reputation and angered professionals.
A 2021 report from the local court of auditors highlighted the “complex and opaque” structure of 9e Art +, as well as inconsistent financial operations.
Under the company, the Angoulême festival also faced several accusations of sexism.
The announcement of an exhibition dedicated to French author Bastien Vivès in the 2023 edition sparked debate as writers and feminist activists denounced the normalisation of incest and child sexual abuse in his work.
The episode triggered the emergence of #MeTooBD and the festival eventually cancelled the exhibition.
But the FIBD truly entered crisis mode in January, when French newspaper L’Humanité revealed that an employee was fired after she reported she was raped during the 2024 event.
The revelation caused outrage among professionals and fuelled calls for a change of governance. In a statement published in late January, the Authors and Composers French Syndicate denounced the festival’s “toxic atmosphere.”
As negotiations were ongoing to renew the festival’s governing bodies after 2028, authors were angered to learn that 9e Art + was still being considered to lead the event.
This was the last straw. Authors increasingly called for boycott and publishers followed through in November.
“The FIBD has demonstrated its inability to listen to the comic book world, which for many months has overwhelmingly been rejecting the reappointment of [9e Art +] and of its director, Franck Bondoux,” the Union of Alternative Publishers said in a statement on 10 November.
Public partners tried to maintain dialogue as unanimous discontent continued to rise.
Faced with the prospect of an event deprived of its artists, they eventually pulled out their funds, which account for 47 per cent of the festival’s budget.
“Authors, together with their publishers, are the ones who make the festival happen. Without them and without festival-goers, there would be no event, and without a festival, there is no public funding,” Angoulême mayor Xavier Bonnefond said in a press conference on 20 November.
Now backed into a corner, 9e Art + had no choice but to announce the cancellation of the upcoming edition.
The company’s governance contract runs for two more years and the 2027 festival could also be compromised if tensions remain high.
The prospect of other organisers taking over from 2028 onwards remains a source of hope for the industry but it promises to be a long battle.
“Never before has the danger been so real of seeing the most important comic book event disappear,” the Union of Alternative Publishers said.