The fiftieth edition of the international comic strip festival was held from Thursday 26 to Sunday 29 January. After the cancellation of the Bastien Vivès exhibition and the rise of #MeTooBD testifying to sexist and sexual violence, the 9th art is under tension. Reportage.
“Child crime is not a joke”. Rue Beaulieu in Angoulême, Charente, feminist collages covered the walls. Festival-goers who come for the International Comic Strip Festival (FIDB) no longer stop at the drawn walls of the comic book capital, but at these feminist words, filled with a anger « légitime » according to the Minister of Culture, Rima Abdul Malak traveling to the festival on Thursday 26 January. It was the first day of the fiftieth edition of the FIDB, which crowned the Grand Prix 2023 the designer Riad Sattouf and the Fauve d’or Martin Panchaud. The four days of the festival took place in the shadow of the Vivès affair and sometimes under tension. Between dedication to freedom of expression, debate around sexism and feminist comics, the fiftieth edition of the FIDB marks the spirits with its positions.
Since Thursday, the Angoulême Paper Museum has been empty. This is where the carte blanche exhibition “In the eyes of Bastien Vivès” was to be held. A program that galvanized minds and sparked controversy on December 9th. Critics have accused the books Lazy man et Little Paul of the author, of “trivializing child pornography and incest” or to promote “rape culture”. The author also issued death threats in 2017 against one of his colleagues, Emma, for which he issued an apology on December 15. The day before, the festival had taken the decision to cancel the exhibition. A choice explained by Franck Bondoux, general delegate of the festival, on Friday January 27 during a debate on sexism and comics: “Bastien Vives has received death threats. […] What tells us that what is said on social networks will not find a dramatic consequence in reality? Nothing tells us! »
The next day, as long queues formed for the signings, the atmosphere was celebratory in the festival tents, a far cry from the Vivès affair… Arnaud Michel and Antoine Lassalle, two writers at the signings in the Cosmopolitan Bookstore in the Champ de Mars shopping center, interviewed by chathave “just heard about it on the radio while coming to the festival”. But they “have no opinion”. Anne-Sophie and Eugénie made the trip from Nantes only for the day. The Vivès case, they have it « vaguement » entendu parler. “We just saw[…]
