2023-04-17 13:51:55
It is a snub that the French army would have done without. The screenwriter Nicolas Juncker announced on Friday April 14 that he was giving up the reward linked to the Galons de la BD, a prize awarded for three years by the Ministry of the Armed Forces to a comic book album “dealing with military matters”. The Grand Prix of this competition had just been awarded to him for A general, generalsx (Le Lombard, 2022), a story illustrated by François Boucq telling in a humorous way the attempted putsch of the French soldiers in Algiers in 1958.
“If other authors [et] authors have every right to rejoice at such a reward, as far as I am concerned, for personal, moral, political reasons, which concern only me, it is impossible for me to accept this prize as it is”explained the author in a press release published on Facebook, recalling that he had already made it known, two years ago, that he did not wish to be associated with the Galons de la BD, when one of his previous albums, Alone in Berlin (Casterman, 2020), had been pre-selected by the Ministry of the Armed Forces.
“The army is capable of having a sense of humor”
Symbolically, Nicolas Juncker has decided to award the 3,000 euro reward due to him to “a solidarity fund with the strikers against the pension reform” and to “a support fund for victims of military violence in Sainte-Soline [Deux-Sèvres] ». “That, through my meager means, the Minister of the Armed Forces financially support these causes, wondering, perhaps, how to reestablish the “ties which unite a people to its army” rather than seeking to destroy them, that could only comfort me “, argues the screenwriter. Two people were seriously injured during the clashes with the gendarmes which took place in Sainte-Soline on March 25.
Awarded by a jury made up of soldiers and comics professionals, the winners of the third edition of the Stripes of Comics were, it is true, surprising. The Scrapbook A general, generals depicts soldiers totally overwhelmed by the events in Algiers, who end up throwing themselves into the arms of General de Gaulle to make up for their blunders. The episode of the insurrection in Corsica of the paratroopers of the “11eshock”, supposed to initiate a seizure of power by the military in mainland France, is to stand side by side.
“It’s a sign that the army is capable of having a sense of humor about itself”, sees it on the contrary François Boucq, questioned by The world. The designer from Lille did not wish to show solidarity with Nicolas Juncker and attended, unlike his screenwriter, the award ceremony for the Galons de la BD, which was held on April 12 at the Ministry of the Armed Forces and was chaired by Patricia Mirallès, Secretary of State for Veterans and Remembrance. “Nicolas Juncker has his opinion, I respect it, but I don’t necessarily have the same one, made a point of specifying François Boucq. If violence jeopardizes our way of conceiving the world, it is also good that there are people to defend [celle-ci]. »
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