The controversy concerns the Eco-Fauve Raja, a newly created prize to reward the best comic of the year on ecological issues.
Seven titles were selected, candidates for this prize awarded during the festival in March.
On Wednesday, independent journalist Inès Léraud, one of the five members of the jury, also author of a comic strip on green algae, announced on Twitter that she and the other four members of the jury had "finally renounced" their functions. .
"We discovered after the fact, without having been informed at the time of the invitation, that the name of the prize was associated with that of a brand, Raja, a multinational packaging company and partner/sponsor of the festival. It is inappropriate for an industrial brand to be associated with a prize rewarding environmental comics, for the purposes of communication and promotion of its image", she explained.
The management of the Angoulême Festival denied this version on Thursday.
In a statement sent to AFP, she recalled that before announcing the composition of the jury, the Festival (FIBD) had widely communicated publicly on this prize, with the name of Raja.
"We didn't betray anyone. Everyone was perfectly aware from the start of the presence of this company", explained to AFP the general delegate of the FIBD, Franck Bondoux.
Raja, a distributor of packaging and equipment for companies, has been "a Festival partner for years now, in good times and in bad times", recalled the management of the FIBD.
A world reference for all comic book lovers, the festival is struggling with notorious financial difficulties after the cancellation of its 2021 edition, due to the health crisis, and the postponement of its 2022 edition, initially scheduled for the traditional date of the end of January. .
This will take place from March 17 to 20.
"We have other priorities than this controversy," said Mr. Bondoux.
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