Chloe Lagadou
Two days after the death of Queen Elizabeth II, the death of the monarch made headlines. In Paris too, his disappearance moved the inhabitants; the proof rue de Rivoli, where the English bookstore Smith & Son saw a queue forming at the entrance, books and newspapers tearing up like hot cakes.
The Smith & Son bookstore is always full. This Saturday morning, customers were even queuing outside the store to try to buy the latest issues of the English press. The death of Queen Elizabeth II is making headlines. Charleine comes out with arms full of bags full of newspapers and magazines.
“It’s symbolic in the sense that I was born with the queen who was already there and it makes me feel weird that she’s no longer there,” she says. “I grew up with it and I thought it was a bit immortal. As soon as I started learning English, I always had a photo, a document.”
Queen Elizabeth II is present in all the windows of the bookstore. His death is a historic moment for Aurélie, who wants to keep a memory of it.
“It marked an era. It will be the end of ‘God Save the Queen’ and the beginning of ‘God Save the King’, so important to keep track of this moment in history.”
Stock sold out in minutes
And she’s far from the only client wanting to keep track of this event. On Friday, the bookstore sold out its stocks in 20 minutes. So this Saturday, the manager adapted her orders. “We had a lot of people yesterday”, explains Marianne at the microphone of Europe 1. “The customers wanted the English dailies which we sold in a very short time. Fortunately, we were able to have a reprint, which means that ‘we got a lot of stock today, daily newspapers from Friday and today.”
The bookstore has even multiplied by 10 its number of newspapers available for sale. This figure should increase further in order to be able to meet the demands of the still very numerous customers.