Nine hundred thousand copies of a print run scheduled for the week of March 10 were simply canceled. The comic book version of Beauty and the Beast, a tale popularized in the 18th century, illustrated by cartoonist Jul and intended for all of France's 5th graders, will not go the print. The artist expressed alarm at what he called "unprecedented censorship."
The book had been selected as part of an operation launched in 2017 to encourage children to read by gifting them an illustrated classic ahead of their last summer before middle school. Past books included The Fables of La Fontaine, Homer's The Odyssey and, in 2024, Jean Giono's The Man Who Planted Trees, chosen "in the context of climate change" and illustrated by Pierre-Emmanuel Lyet.
This year, it was Beauty and the Beast, in the version written by Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont. The story is well known since Jean Cocteau and Disney brought it to the screen: a young girl (Belle) sacrifices herself to save her father, sentenced to death for a rose picked in the domain of a monster, the Beast. The Beast spares Belle and takes her into his castle. She then realizes that behind the monstrous features lies a man in love, but under a spell.
You have 78.62% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only.