Tobacco stores, open. But the bookstores, closed? This Thursday morning, the Minister of the Economy, Bruno Le Maire, was questioned by the listeners of France Inter on the incongruity of the situation and the not always clear distinction between "essential shops" and the others.
Asked in particular about the fact that the American giant Amazon could continue to deliver the French in various and varied works, while the independent booksellers had to lower the curtain since last weekend, the minister, moreover a writer himself, gave his feeling: "Bookstores are a business of first necessity, that's my conviction". And to announce that he was going, with his counterpart to Culture, Franck Riester, to study the possibility of reopening the bookstores, "under conditions", he hammered. Clearly, no more strolling. Readers could, one by one, enter the shop and buy a targeted book beforehand.
Marie-Rose Guarnieri, from the Abbesses bookstore in Paris (18th century), would be happy to open "at least four hours a day - two hours in the morning, two hours in the afternoon". She could work “all by herself, without my employees, whom I immediately put on short-time working, so that people who want to read, who need books, too, for their children, can access them by returning a by one with demanding sanitary conditions. "I think it's essential, really, that people have access to books. Even if they have them at home, they may want to treat themselves to something new. "
The financial hole looks terrible
And then there is the economic aspect. "I tell you very concretely, I pay Christmas books in March, which will represent, without turnover, 38,000 euros at the end of the month. At the end of April, it will be 30,000 euros. Even if we are told that we can defer these payments, I will never recover 70,000 euros by reopening my bookstore I do not know when. The financial hole looks terrible.
"The bookstore is crafts," continues Marie-Rose Guarnieri. If you dig the debts and you do not open, and you add the tax debts like the Urssaf which will fall then, there, even by opening day and night, this hole, you will never manage to go up it. I am obviously very anxious about this situation and again, I am not the most to complain about, my library works well. I will be able to ensure the salaries of my team. But there are colleagues for whom, if you stop their activity, you kill them. "
“We are against reopening, rebound Karine Henry and Xavier Moni, from the bookstore Comme un roman, in Paris (IIIe). It is nonsense to propose that. It is a huge responsibility to make employees and customers take risks. We are in confinement, so we respect the necessary and vital measures. "
"Amazon continues the business as if everything was as before"
And Xavier Moni, moreover, president of the Syndicat de la librairie française (SLF), to question Bruno Le Maire. "It would be better to settle the problem of Amazon who continues the business as if everything was as before, right?" That's the problem. "As of this Wednesday evening, the SLF was moved:" If the sale of books in bookstores is not essential to the life of the nation, why is the sale of books by Amazon or in hypermarkets? "
The union specifies that, since the announcements of containment, the bookstores "are a very large majority to have also suspended any service of withdrawal and delivery and renounced an opening when the sale of other products as the press authorized them". “These decisions represent a financial sacrifice but the booksellers do it in responsibility. They are aware of the shortfall for authors and publishers and will compensate for it with a tenfold commitment when this crisis is overcome. "
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But, there is a "but" ... "At the same time, mass distribution and online sales platforms continue, as if nothing had happened, the sale and delivery of books. […] The health risks engendered by this logistics chain are very important whereas the official instructions enjoin us to limit contacts as much as possible. "And to ask:" The continuation of orders and withdrawals of books via mass distribution or Amazon represents a heresy of health and unfair competition and we call on the government to put an end to it. "