Posted in: Comics | Tagged: Angoulême, Christian Comics Festival

French Christian Comics Festival Still Taking Place During Angoulême

The French Christian Comics Festival still taking place during Angoulême and awards its graphic novel prize

Published Mon, 08 Dec 2025 11:57:03 -0600

Article Summary

Despite the 2026 Angoulême festival cancellation, the Christian Comics Festival continues as planned.
The Christian Comics Prize will be awarded at Saint-Martial Church, with events across Angoulême venues.
Vous N'Aurez Pas Les Enfants wins the 2026 prize, honoring the rescue of Jewish children in 1942 Vénissieux.
The graphic novel by Arnaud Le Gouëfflec and Olivier Balez adapts Valérie Portheret's historical research.

The Angoulême festival has been cancelled for 2026; you may have read about it somewhere. And while the show itself will not take place in 2026, the Christian Comics Festival is still on, taking place from January 29th to February 1st with exhibitions at Saint-Martial Church, where the Christian Comics Prize will be awarded on the first day, as well as at the cathedral and the Temple of Angoulême. The jury was chaired by Archbishop Balsa of Albi, Lavaur, and Castres, and the winner is the graphic novel Vous N'Aurez Pas Les Enfants, or You Won't Get The Children, by Arnaud Le Gouëfflec and Olivier Balez, published by Glénat, and based on the book by Valérie Portheret, which recounts the rescue of 108 Jewish children in Vénissieux in August 1942, thanks to Father Alexandre Glasberg. In 2025, the prize was awarded to the graphic novel Nagazaki 1945, published by Plein Vent.

Christian Comics Festival Still Taking Place During Angoulême — Vous N'Aurez Pas Les Enfants by Arnaud Le Gouëfflec and Olivier Balez

Vous N'Aurez Pas Les Enfants by Arnaud Le Gouëfflec and Olivier Balez
The incredible rescue of the Jewish children of Vénissieux. August 1942, Lyon region. In a France torn apart by war, the Vichy government is preparing to organize another roundup after the Vel' d'Hiv', handing over foreign Jews from the unoccupied zone to the Nazi occupiers. Among them are hundreds of children. When Father Glasberg learns what is being plotted, he has little time to act. Founder of L'Amitié Chrétienne (Christian Friendship), the clergyman has meticulously combed through the laws until he finds a loophole: his hopes rest on a list of exemptions! Under the guise of helping to sort the influx of internees, Father Glasberg embarks on a veritable administrative battle. Thanks to an unprecedented network of solidarity formed by citizens, members of the Resistance, and members of the Christian organization, he will succeed in exfiltrating a great many people from the Vénissieux camp, notably by providing false documents. But he knows that the convoys will soon take away the remaining women and children. He also knows that a final clause stipulates the unthinkable: if parents abandon their children, the children cannot be deported. The ploy is heartbreaking. On the night of August 28-29, 1942, mothers and fathers will perform a final act of love to spare their children the Final Solution. The rescue of 108 children from the Vénissieux transit camp will forever be remembered. Arnaud Le Gouëfflec and Olivier Balez deliver a faithful adaptation of the book by historian Valérie Portheret, who also wrote the preface, in a moving graphic novel that raises the question of individual responsibility. Part testimony, part act of remembrance, the artwork is somber and the narrative concise. There are no great heroes here, but rather a solidarity that reflects collective courage in the face of the unacceptable. An edifying work that should be read by everyone. Historian Valérie Portheret has reconstructed, after twenty-five years of research, this rescue of children from the Vénissieux camp, collecting the testimonies of a great many of them from all over the world.