PRESS RELEASE – Monday 27th january 2025

We, the members of the Syndicat des Éditeurs Alternatifs (Alternative Publishers Syndicate), were shocked to learn of the investigation led by Lucie Servin and Élisabeth Fleury and published in l’Humanité Magazine. The subject is 9e Art+, the company which the Angoulême International Comics Festival association has put in charge of its organisation for the past 18 years.

Brutal management, burn-outs, opaque financial arrangements, reprisals against journalists, failure to separate public and private interests: these facts, already denounced by the press, are known throughout the profession. Recently, a case of nepotism involving Franck Bondoux and his daughter added to this objectionable backlog, shedding light on practices that should be incompatible with the creative diversity that the Festival is committed to defending. These facts reflect negatively on 9e Art+, whose contract renewal in spring 2025 seems to remain unquestioned by the Festival.

However, the new information revealed by Lucie Servin and Élisabeth Fleury is of an entirely different nature, shedding light on endemic dysfunctions which have become intolerable. A rape took place in 2024. During the Festival. The 9e Art+ communications manager was drugged at a party organised by the Festival. And she was raped by a partner of the Festival. The victim was not defended by 9e Art+ management, quite the opposite: her testimony was cast into doubt and she was quickly made redundant. 9e Art+ has not only failed on a human level but has also failed to meet all its legal obligations, and persists in discrediting the victim in a dumbfounding press release, remaining stubborn in its blindness and brutality.

We, the members of the S.E.A., wish to express our total solidarity with the victim and tell her one very simple thing: “We believe you.”

In these circumstances, we call on the Angoulême Festival association to take every necessary measure to ensure that these crimes and assaults are no longer permitted to occur within the context of the event. We ask the Festival association to make the prevention of sexist and sexual violence a priority, as is already the case in other professional environments.

We urge the Festival association to recognise the responsibility of its service provider, the 9e Art+ company, and, in conclusion, we ask them not to renew the contract binding them.

A public offer would likely make it possible to hear other proposals and, if necessary, to consider a new application from 9e Art+, provided that an internal transformation is observed, that new commitments are clearly laid out and that adequate guarantees are offered on both sides.

We call on the State and public authorities to take stock of the situation and act accordingly. The Festival’s existence relies on public subsidies, and it would be incomprehensible if this support did not correlate with an organisation that is transparent, that guarantees creative diversity and respects general interests as well as individuals.

Whether it likes it or not, The Angoulême Festival has become a common good that benefits comics as a whole and all its components. We hold it dear. It cannot be confiscated by a very small number of people who refuse to be held accountable by the community.

The S.E.A.