In the 1980s, the left in power and the reign of the “cultural exception”

By Michel Guerrin and Brigitte Salino

Posted today at 6:30 a.m., updated at 11:30 a.m.

Ten words. “The law on the single book price has been passed. “ Trumpeted on August 10, 1981 at the National Assembly, they announced a French revolution: “the cultural exception”. The formula is then barbaric – and will not be imposed until the beginning of the 1990s -, but, since that distant summer day, the book is no longer a commodity like any other. Its price is no longer subject to free competition, it does not vary from one bookstore to another – some offered discounts. Whether it is a neighborhood brand, a chain of stores or a supermarket, everyone must comply with the price set by the publisher. This law is a landmark, but it was also the culmination of a long way of the cross.

It bears the name of Jack Lang, but could have been called “Jérôme Lindon law”. “He is the inventor”, recognizes the former Minister of Culture. This former resistance member, director of the legendary Editions de Minuit since 1948, support of Beckett or Duras, sued for having published The question (1958), by Henri Alleg, the first book denouncing torture during the Algerian war, died in 2001. “He was a secular saint, a calm and determined fighter, Lang remembers.

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When they meet in 1980, Lindon unfolds a catastrophic scenario for him: if you come to power in May 1981 and if you do nothing, part of the 4,000 independent bookstores in France will disappear, eaten up by supermarkets, powerful enough to offer discount prices on popular books, essential for any brand to live and sell other, more difficult titles. In turn, small publishing houses will disappear since they will no longer have a relay for books with modest editions. To hear it, there is only one solution: impose a single price.

“Like a toothbrush”

Catastrophic, Lindon? He gives his own example. In Paris, his Editions de Minuit are located a stone’s throw from the Fnac on rue de Rennes, opened in 1974, the first to sell books offering 20% ​​discounts. A year later, eleven neighborhood bookstores closed, five were for sale.

The climate worsened in 1979. Before, the publisher fixed a “recommended price”, mentioned in the book, which the bookseller often respected. But, in February 1979, an “arrested René Monory “, Named after the Minister of the Economy at the time, changed the situation: it was up to the bookseller to decide the price. Since then, Fnac has had a great time, which the same year created a store in the Forum des Halles. The Leclerc group is another threat: in 1970, its supermarket in Tarbes, in the Hautes-Pyrénées, was selling books at cut prices. Christian Thorel, director of the Ombres blancs bookstore in Toulouse, saw an Fnac open in 1980 in a city shopping center: “We lost 25% of turnover for two years. ” The daily Release can title: “The little bookstore smells of corpse. “

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