Best-selling book in France in 2022 was comic about climate change

Released in late 2021, 'Le Monde Sans Fin' was celebrated for its simplicity and criticized for championing nuclear powe

The best selling book in France in 2022 was a comic book. No wonder that in the homeland of René Goscinny and Abert Uderzo, the parents of the phenomenal Asterix, this happened. Avid readers.The French transformed Le Monde Sans Fin (Dargaud) into an editorial success — more than half a million copies sold — due to its theme and its nature, which was at the same time didactic and controversial.Scripted by engineer and writer Jean-Marc Jancovici, a specialist in energy and climate, and designed by Christophe Blain, the work deals with climate change, global warming and the renewable energy alternatives that we have available to reverse the terrible situation we find ourselves in.

Celebrated in the French press for its qualities, such as the simplicity with which it presents concepts, Le Monde Sans Fin was also attacked for defending nuclear energy as the best option to replace fossil fuels. It is no coincidence that the newspaper Libération placed the work of Janco and Blain on the cover of its Saturday edition, 

14, linked to an editorial entitled “Le Monde Sans Fin, comic by Jancovici and Blain: surfing the phenomenon without being deceived”.

In the text, the left-leaning French daily defends the thesis that the album has the merit of reaching a portion of public opinion that is not necessarily sensitive to the theme of ecological issues, although it highlights the pro-nuclear arguments of the engineer author. 

To get an idea of ​​how the comic mobilized public opinion, shortly before Christmas, environmental activists organized a protest against the work. In Cherbourg-en-Cotentin, 

in Toulouse, Bordeaux and Paris, several bookstores were approached by false representatives of the publishing house Dargaud to insert a false errata with messages antinuclear in comics. In the text of the fake document, protesters wrote: “Jean-Marc Jancovici has repeatedly demonstrated a formidable talent for popularizing science. We must, however, recognize their flagrant lack of ability in the human sciences.” The publisher registered a complaint against the authors for the crime of ideological falsehood.

Detail of the homepage of the comic 'Le Monde Sans Fin', by Jean-Marc Jancovici and Christophe Blain, the best selling book in France in 2022 - (Dargaud/Reproduction)