The Gallimard and La Table Ronde editions announced on Tuesday that the marketing of Gabriel Matzneff's works, which was the subject of an investigation into rapes of minors, would stop. A form of hypocrisy for some, a cynical windfall for others.
Since the scandal broke out, the price of the author's books, which mostly describe his pedophile practices, has soared on online resale sites. On Leboncoin.fr, a simple Folio pocket edition thus retails for € 50. Same observation on Amazon, where there are still some large Gallimard second-hand formats for around sixty euros.
This parallel market flourishes especially on auction sites: old publications, works in "perfect condition", or simple autographs compete for gold prices on eBay or Rakuten (former PriceMinister).
Gabriel Matzneff's autograph auctioned on eBay./Screenshot
Prices soar in the range of around twenty euros for a paperback book up to… € 1,000 for an original edition at Gallimard. "At this price, I'm not sure she's leaving, but I might as well try," explains Jean *, a former lecturer in Paris who posted his ad on Wednesday evening on the eBay site, explains on the phone .
“I first wanted to form an opinion on Matzneff. I bought one of his newspapers a few weeks ago, "Mes amours décomposés" ( 1983-84 Editor's note ), but I didn't like it, it's falling out of your hands. And I understand that his words can shock, "he said.
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Seeing Gallimard end his collaboration with the writer, this now retired academic hastened to put his copy up for sale. With a small case of conscience? "Not the least," he retorts. "Do you think we get richer with € 1,000?" "
A copy of Gabriel Matzneff's book "Under 16's" auctioned on eBay./Screenshot.
Jean is not at his first attempt. A few years ago, Jean * had already put on sale the famous Charlie Hebdo number published after the attacks of January 7, 2015. "But there, I was far from being the only one," he tempers.
The former lecturer had also sold a decade ago another scandalous book, "Suicide: mode d'emploi", by Claude Guillon and Yves Le Bonniec. Released in 1982, the work had been the subject of a trial before being completely prohibited for sale in France. Reason: some chapters detailed how to end his life.
Useless to see behind its resales any desire to defend literature in all its forms: "It was purely mercantile," cynically recognizes the former academic.
Same speech from Léo *, a bookseller in Rouen, who notably offers "Mes amours décomposés" by Matzneff for 150 € on eBay. The bookseller also sold “Les less than sixteen” for 46 € on the same site. Works recovered after the death of an acquaintance "close to the literary world".
"My job is to sell books so I grab the ball with leaps and bounds," he explains to the Parisian. And to add, underlining the black irony of the situation: “We are not going to lie to each other, until now the books by Matzneff were not sold. "
The bookseller, who says he has "twenty or so works" by the author in his reserve, is about to release them on the market. "They will sell. The scandal attracts curiosity. It's a fad, ”he says.
For its part, the eBay site specifies that if "for the moment, Gabriel Matzneff's books have not been banned", a team of moderators is already "withdrawing the ads offering the book" The least 16 years old ". The platform says "think about a total withdrawal of all objects related to this author".
* First names have been changed
