Europe 1 with 5:54 p.m. AFP, 28 December 2021
The 49th international cartoon festival in Angoulême, originally scheduled for January 27 to 30 2022, will be postponed because of the health crisis, announced its managing director Franck Bondoux.
Faced with soaring contamination and after the new restrictions, which gauges, "the idea is not to force destiny at any cost to have a gradient event," he said, confirming a report Liberation.
"With this postponement, the festival will have a vital need for exceptional" and "very significant" help from the public authorities to ensure its future, he continued.
The flagship event in the world of the ninth art had already seen its 2021 edition severely disrupted by the outbreak of Covid-19, giving up to go to the public in June.
An event that brings together "well beyond gauges"
The festival has informed the public authorities and comic book publishers of its intention to postpone the edition which was to be held at the end of January, and hopes that the latter will commit to its side "in the time of this postponement". Angoulême was forced to postpone, probably towards "the end of winter or the beginning of spring" depending on the evolution of the situation, in view of the "uncertainty" caused by the outbreak in recent weeks of cases of Covid, he added. The government's announcements on Monday, establishing again and for three weeks gauges for major events (2,000 people indoors and 5,000 outdoors), brought the coup de grace, while the assembly of the structures of the festival was to begin on Monday.
The event would be "well beyond the gauges by cumulating all the audiences present in the city", and the organizers could not take the risk in the face of the uncertainty over the duration of the restrictive measures, said Franck Bondoux .