[Editor: The following was submitted by French readers and is part of an on-going series aimed at letting fans around the globe express their concern over French publishers losing their license to republish Legends content. If you would like to share your thoughts, or have additional details related to this breaking story, write to us at contact@theexpandeduniverse.com]
See also: Star Wars Legends: Histoire et Secrets - History and Secrets
The Expanded Universe arrived in France in 1992 with Heir to the Empire. Then up to 1998 a dozen novels were translated and published by both Pocket and Presses de la Cité. In that year, Dark Horse also self-published a handful of comics in French (including Dark Empire). In 1999 everything changed and Fleuve Noir started to publish novels (at a faster rate than before) and Delcourt got the rights to publish Dark Horse's comics in French. And nothing changed for years, except that Pocket replaced Fleuve Noir to publish the novels in 2012. Even with the comics license going to Marvel in 2015, Delcourt was able to retain the rights to comics published by Dark Horse (another publisher translate Marvel's new comics). On the side, Pocket continued to translate Legends novels alongside the Story Group Canon novels up to the end of 2017. In fact, Pocket listened to the fans and republished Darth Plagueis when it was out of print and also produced compilations of out of print series such as the Darth Bane trilogy (they actually produced five such compilations). But that was before 2018. Now, Disney no longer will allow Pocket to use materials from before 2015. So it means no new translations (knowing that we were still waiting for books such as Knight Errant, Crosscurrent, Mercy Kill and Razor's Edge), no other compilations, no reprint of out of print books and ebooks in French will be available. There is no other word than censorship to qualify this because Pocket wants to continue to publish them. Legends sold well. But in term of censorship, there's more. Delcourt is no longer allowed to reprint some materials, including Dawn of the Jedi and Tales of the Jedi. Is that a clue that Disney wants that place for their new stuff in that era? We leave that question to the people who are interested in that kind of content. Tales of the Jedi is now difficult to find in French and that wonderful story should not be erased despite what Disney wants. We don’t forget either about the uncertainty that the game « Star Wars: The Old Republic » will be continued after the 6.0 update. Will we see it someday?
Legends should be allowed to live and prevail.
