Parisian booksellers are upside down. Or, rather, it is their “boxes”, arranged on the banks of the Seine, which could be in a year. Because, with the Olympic and Paralympic Games (JOP) of Paris 2024, and especially the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games which will take place on the Seine on July 26, 2024, the security measures could lead the Prefecture of police to ask them to remove their installations.
This is what the Paris City Hall anticipates, which informed the representatives of the booksellers during a meeting on July 10. “During the Games, and especially the opening ceremony, access to the high platforms will be very restricted”, warned Pierre Rabadan, in charge of sport and the Olympic Games (JO), and Olivia Polski, in charge of trade and crafts.
Enough to stir up the anger of those concerned. “We were clearly explained that our boxes were going to obstruct the view on the day of the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games and that we were going to be forced to dismantle them”, annoys Jérôme Callais, president of the Cultural Association of booksellers of Paris, which has 200 members out of the 233 installed along the banks of the Seine.
During the meeting with the Town Hall, two options were proposed: either “maintaining the boxes as they are with restricted access”, either “their withdrawal”, with a possible renovation during this period, at the expense of the municipality, with the assurance that they are rested as soon as possible. This could facilitate, according to Mme Polski and Mr. Rabadan, “the candidacy of the booksellers of the banks of the Seine for UNESCO heritage”.
“Anne Hidalgo wants to celebrate Paris and its monuments with the Olympic Games, but booksellers are part of Paris. Wanting to make us disappear is as absurd as dismantling the Eiffel Tower or Notre-Dame de Paris! We have been here for four hundred and fifty years” recalls Jérôme Callais.
Proposal for the creation of a “village of booksellers”
The City of Paris has also suggested the creation of a “village of booksellers to highlight this profession and enable the benefit of touristic spin-offs during the Games”, while restricted access to the “boxes” or their dismantling will reduce the activity of these booksellers.
Mr. Callais refuses such a hypothesis. He likes to recall that Baron Haussmann had also, to restore its original purity to the quays of Paris, wanted to get rid of the booksellers by proposing to exile them to the poultry market (between the quai des Grands-Augustins and the rue de Buci, in 6e arrondissement). Paul Lacroix, known as the “bibliophile Jacob”, intervened with Napoleon III to defend them and won his case.
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