Frank Bondoux announced at a Paris press conference that his company 9e Art+ and Angoulême Festival owners Association FIBD will launch legal action to block the ADBDA’s plan to replace FIBD with a new festival. The timing coincided with what would have been the first day of this year’s festival – and the actual opening of ad hoc substitutes Grand Off and GirlxCott’s Interconnected Comics Fairs.
Earlier this month a newly reformed Association for the Development of Comics in Angoulême (ADBDA) announced a call for an alternative organiser to develop and organise a brand new comics festival in the town. This call followed the collapse of the 53 year old institution in late 2025 following author and publisher boycotts against controversial organiser 9e Art+, who had been reinstated by the Association FIBD despite widespread opposition.
9e Art+ had been operating the Angoulême Festival since 2006 but over the years had become increasingly unpopular and a major source of controversy. In 2025, just before the last Angoulême Festival, an exposé in Humanité magazine had revealed claims of financial irregularities, commercial drift, a toxic management culture, and – crucially – the dismissal of an employee after disclosing their sexual assault.
At the nearly 2-hour conference, a seated and soft spoken Bondoux – alongside two lawyers and at least one 9e Art+ employee – laid down the case as he saw it. Among his claims were the belief that he alone made the Angoulême Festival internationally renowned and that many of the complaints against its operation over the years were contradictory, and largely not the fault of his company. He also said that 9e Art+ was still contractually obligated to conclude its present contract (which ends in 2027), and claimed that he may be open to some form of handover procedure but had not been consulted by any of the major parties.
Bondoux had now begun legal proceedings against the ADBDA to block their plan of action because, according to him, their decision to start a brand new comics festival around the same time of year, in the same geographical location was tantamount to, in the words of one of his lawyers, “unfair competition” and “parasitism”. To further explain the point, Monsieur Bondoux used the analogy of an Adidas shoe.
While French legal definitions may differ, the term ‘Unfair Competition’, according to the Legal Information Institute, “specifically refers to practices that mislead or confuse consumers about the source, sponsorship, affiliation, or quality of goods or services”, while ‘Reputation Parasitism’ refers to a rival brand appropriating another’s reputation to market its own product.
The current procedure – essentially an injunction – being filed is seemingly an interrim measure designed to halt the ADBDA’s open call, with more legal filings likely to come. In December 2025, Bondoux had also declared his intention to sue the public authorities who provide up to half of the festival budget, after they pulled out in November. It is unclear if that has already been filed and is going ahead.
It is worth noting that the ADBDA – especially in its newly expanded form – is a body comprising representatives of authors unions, publisher groups, and public bodies at the local, departmental, regional and national level in France. In mounting legal action against the body, he is symbolically attacking the whole French comics industry and several levels of government.
Today’s press conference was announced with just two days notice via the official Festival email account on Tuesday (January 27), with the invitation only permitting journalists be present. Besides the time, name and place, it simply read [translation via DeepL]:
“During the conference, we will discuss the uncertainty surrounding the future of the Angoulême International Comics Festival, a leading cultural event in the world of comics, which is organized by us and owned by the Association FIBD.”
Shortly following the close of the conference, the Association FIBD posted a press release stating,
“It notes with extreme concern that on January 13, the Association for the Development of Comics in Angoulême (ADBDA) launched a call for projects to designate the organiser of an event presented as new, but which almost entirely replicates the scope, content, geographical location, and very spirit of the FIBD.
“The specifications drawn up by the ADBDA thus constitute a clear and deliberate attempt to replicate the Festival, while claiming to change its name. This crude subterfuge, a simple semantic artifice, cannot hide the reality: the aim is to reproduce the FIBD as it has been built, structured, and developed over more than fifty years, and particularly during the last few editions.”
And,
“Deliberately marginalised and then excluded by the public authorities from the entire process, excluded from any consultation, deprived of its founding event, the Association FIBD, targeted by extremely hostile statements from certain elected officials whose sole aim was to delegitimise it, now finds itself forced, with regret but with determination, to take legal action and seek the protection of the courts.”
It is our understanding that the Association FIBD had refused to engage with the ADBDA, even though it was a member of the original organization, but had remained absent while crisis talks took place between public partners, publishers groups, and authors unions in November 2025 to break the impasse. The ADBDA was originally formed in 2017 as a mediation device between major stakeholders to avoid or manage crises. Without prior discussion, the president of the Association FIBD, Delphine Groux, had suddenly declared the contested result annulled and would be rerun – long after the entire industry had lost any semblence of trust in her or the Association.
Mounting legal action could potentially snarl up the entire process of the formation of a new festival for months – and would almost certainly put the chances of a new event starting in 2027 in question.
The future of any form of Angoulême Festival is once more uncertain.
Full Association FIBD press release, dated January 29, 2026, signed with the email address of its president (Delphine Groux):
ANGOULEIME FESTIVAL: IT’S FOUNDING ASSOCIATION FORCED TO TAKE LEGAL ACTION TO DEFEND ITS RIGHTS
As the creator of the Angoulême International Comics Festival in 1974, the Association FIBD is the owner of this event, which has become a global benchmark.
It notes with extreme concern that on January 13, the Association for the Development of Comics in Angoulême (ADBDA) launched a call for projects to designate the organiser of an event presented as new, but which almost entirely replicates the scope, content, geographical location, and very spirit of the FIBD.
The specifications drawn up by the ADBDA thus constitute a clear and deliberate attempt to replicate the Festival, while claiming to change its name. This crude subterfuge, a simple semantic artifice, cannot hide the reality: the aim is to reproduce the FIBD as it has been built, structured, and developed over more than fifty years, and particularly during the last few editions.
Even more seriously, in the same document, the ADBDA claims full ownership of this future event, thereby attempting to dispossess and plunder the Association FIBD of its history, its work, its volunteers, and its rights.
Deliberately marginalised and then excluded by the public authorities from the entire process, excluded from any consultation, deprived of its founding event, the Association FIBD, targeted by extremely hostile statements from certain elected officials whose sole aim was to delegitimise it, now finds itself forced, with regret but with determination, to take legal action and seek the protection of the courts.
Faced with this unjustifiable appropriation, legal action is now the only possible way to enforce the law and uphold the fundamental principles that govern civic and cultural life. Consequently, the Association FIBD, together with 9e Art+, has decided to take legal action against the ADBDA as a first step.
This same authoritarian governance also led, without consultation, to the cancellation of the 2026 edition of the FIBD, a decision with serious consequences for the entire cultural, economic, and international ecosystem of the Festival (see the press conference held by public funders on November 20, 2025), foremost among which are the Angoulême region, Festival employees, some of whom have been working there for over 30 years, – a truly devastating blow to the local community – shopkeepers, restaurant owners and hoteliers. This represents a loss of millions of euros for the region.
This raises the question of the future of the FIBD, starting with the organisation of the 2027 edition, which has been contractually entrusted to 9eArt+. No positive outcome can be achieved until dialogue replaces the power grab orchestrated by the ADBDA.
It makes no sense to claim to recreate a new edition of the FIBD from scratch by erasing everything that has made it legitimate, its history and its influence. This is all the more true given that the recent cancellation of the Festival has deeply shaken the confidence of many participants, particularly international ones.
While authors are obviously the cornerstone of the event, the FIBD only exists through the convergence of all its stakeholders. The Association FIBD is one of its cornerstones: as its founder and manager for more than half a century, it has also, from the outset, supported the commitment of its volunteers.
These volunteers, who are conspicuously absent from all discussions today, are nevertheless set to become increasingly indispensable to the survival of major cultural events. They embody the human connection, transmission of knowledge, and loyalty that many claim to value, yet ignore. Will they finally be recognised, respected, and heard?
In the absence of dialogue and respect, it is now up to the courts to decide. It is they who now embody the hopes of the Association FIBD.
