27 March 2025
In a letter dated 19 March 2025 from the French Directorate-General for Education, Jul, a renowned comic artist who also is a press cartoonist and a member of Cartooning for Peace, was informed that the French Ministry of Education had cancelled the commission for the fairytale ‘La belle et la bête’ (Beauty and the Beast), which he was to illustrate in a print run of 800,000 copies as part of the ‘Un livre pour les vacances’ (A book for the holidays) campaign (aimed at giving pupils in fifth grade a literary classic before they start secondary school).
Cartooning for Peace was concerned to learn of this announcement, which came on the eve of printing, despite the fact that editorial collaboration had been underway since the summer of 2024 between Jul, the publisher (GrandPalaisRMN) and the Ministry, and the book was prefaced by a highly complimentary text from the Minister of Education herself.
Cartooning for Peace, which works on a daily basis in schools as a player in media education, deplores the lack of clarity in the decision announced and the evolution of the arguments put forward, between those relating to the official communication from the Ministry of National Education, which had to provide clarifications, and those put forward in the media, in particular by Ms Elisabeth Borne, which were juxtaposed with the Ministry’s communication, adding confusion to a decision that was difficult to understand.
The media coverage of this affair has given rise to a feeling of headlong rush, with a decision that is difficult to understand and interpret, which then fuels all kinds of fantasies and gives free rein to nauseating political and ideological manipulation. The cartoonist Jul has not only lost a commission that was very important to him in terms of his project and his message. His image has been tarnished by unfounded rumours.
At a time when the world of cartooning is already fragile, Cartooning for Peace expresses its solidarity with Jul and is concerned about the precedent that this cancellation could set for freedom of expression and the values enshrined in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which are at the heart of its mandate and which unite its member cartoonists.
