Comic book author Bastien Vivès appeared in court on Tuesday to face charges of fixing and distributing child pornography in two of his comic albums. But the two-day trial, which pits issues of child protection against freedom of speech, was halted after the court north of Paris declared it lacked the territorial jurisdiction to judge the case.
Comic book author Bastien Vivès is accused by several associations of producing pornographic drawings of minors in two of his albums.
The 41-year-old illustrator appeared in a court in Nanterre, in the Hauts-de-Seine department northwest of Paris, on Tuesday morning to face charges of “fixation and transmission with a view to the distribution of child pornographic images”.
The publishers Les Requins Marteaux and Glénat, who released the two albums, are also being tried for disseminating pornographic depictions of minors.
However, proceedings ground to a halt in the afternoon after the court declared it could not hear the case.
“No evidence in the case file allows us to determine that the alleged acts took place in the Hauts-de-Seine,” noted presiding judge Céline Ballerini. The Nanterre court, acting on a request from the defence, therefore declared itself “incompetent” to hear the case and “referred the matter back to the public prosecutor’s office,” the judge added.
If found guilty Vivès faces a maximum five-year prison sentence and a €75,000 fine.
'Unquestionably' pornographic
In January 2023, an investigation was opened following complaints from two child protection groups relating to La Décharge mentale (2018), and Petit Paul (2018).
Petit Paul depicts a child with an oversized penis engaging in sexual acts with adult women, while La Décharge mentale features a man having sexual relations with underage girls.
In its complaint, the child protection group Foundation for Childhood said the cartoons "depict minors in sexually explicit scenes that that unquestionably have a pornographic character".
The foundation's lawyer Cécile Astolfe said the case rests on a “strict application" of Article 227-23 the French penal code.
“The depiction of a minor under 15 years of age with a pornographic character is prohibited,” she stated.
This includes fictional representations such as drawings.
Defending freedom of expression
The defence denies Vivès sought to promote pornography.
“There has never been any incitement to or glorification of pedophilia in Bastien Vivès’ work,” his lawyer, Richard Malka, told the French news agency AFP.
“A crime novelist isn’t responsible for the murders committed by their characters,” he argued in court, criticising what he sees as child protection groups defending “ink-and-paper children” instead of “real ones".
“What’s at stake here is the possibility for artists to continue creating as they wish,” he told France Info. “If we’re banning his comics because they allegedly promote child pornography – which we completely refute – then we might as well take down many paintings in museums, purge literature of crime novels about psychopaths, and remove The Iliad, The Odyssey, the Bible, and the Qur’an.”
Around ten witnesses are expected to take the stand, including former culture minister Françoise Nyssen (2017–2018) and Riss – the director of Charlie Hebdo satirical weekly. Both are appearing for the defence.
Following Petit Paul’s publication in 2018, Glénat said the book “was never intended to trivialise, promote, or legitimise child abuse in any form".
Glénat's director Marion Glénat-Corveler recently said she would defend freedom of expression in court, calling it “a fundamental value of my work as a publisher".
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Drawing a crime?
Vivès, who has long courted controversy with explicit and provocative content, denies any wrongdoing.
He has previously denied any pornographic intent in his work saying it was part of a "burlesque, humoristic genre".
“Drawing can therefore be a crime," he told AFP news agency in February. “I’m not here to heal society’s wounds or to uphold morality, but simply to provoke thought.”
Other works by Vivès – such as Les Melons de la colère, a loose parody of The Grapes of Wrath in which a group of men rape a teenage farm girl – have also drawn protests from associations and activists.
In 2023 the annual Angoulême International Comics Festival cancelled a planned Vivès exhibition after he received threats.
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In June 2024, five individuals were given suspended sentences in Paris for death threats or violent acts against him.
(with AFP)
