Hypermarket shelves made inaccessible by a red banner "sale of books and records FORBIDDEN".
Others completely covered with black cellophane and, so to speak, erased from the magazines.
These unprecedented images toured social networks on Saturday and Sunday, and provoked many reactions of sadness, spite, indignation, anger.
While the Prime Minister confirmed the closure of bookstores, record stores and culture departments of major brands until December 1, the SNEP (National Union of phonographic publishing), main representative of the music industry, launched a petition on Sunday evening to name of artists, producers, authors and publishers to "immediately ask the government to reopen them".
Its vice-president, Olivier Nusse, also boss of Universal Music, explains the foundations of this petition, which had collected nearly 1,300 signatures on Monday at 2 p.m.
What do you think of the closure of cultural stores and culture sections of supermarkets as part of the re-containment?
OLIVIER NUSSE.
I find the latest government announcements totally aberrant and above all inconsistent.
Under the pretext of not wanting to create unfair competition between the different distribution networks, everything is closed and everyone is penalized, the artists first but also the public.
This decision is totally inappropriate, because it reinforces online sales and therefore the injustice that we are supposed to fight.
Especially in this period which concentrates 40% of sales of CDs and vinyls of the year.
I'm talking about music, but it's the same for the book, which we are totally in solidarity with.
How can we not consider cultural property as essential, especially in this period of reconfinement?
What does mass distribution represent in album sales?
It's huge.
The large cultural brands, supermarkets and hypermarkets alone represent 75% of physical sales.
Fnac represents a third of income from physical sales in France.
While the first containment was stricter, their culture departments had remained open.
And that made it possible to maintain activity a little, even if the spring is a period of less intense consumption for the record.
To close everything at the end of the year is extremely damaging!
We do not far from 40% of the sales of our cultural products in November and December.
Because France still has an important sales network ...
Yes, we are lucky to have very present distribution networks, with more than 3000 points of sale.
Thanks to this, last year physical sales still accounted for 40% of overall music revenue in France.
It's a lot.
We must reverse this decision and quickly.
Every day that passes is dramatic… All the artists will try to postpone their releases to December and everything will happen at the same time, there will be distribution problems…
Record stores and booksellers have proven since the deconfinement in June that they know how to adapt ...
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Of course, this is quite manageable.
We know how to put in place reinforced health measures, without taking any risks.
As we have seen in numerous reports, small retailers are playing the game thoroughly.
And in a supermarket, when people come to buy food, I don't see how moving around in a disc shelf changes things.
But can a simple petition really make a difference?
We have to fight.
These measures are made only of exceptions.
The Minister of Culture supports us, of course, but we must convince the Prime Minister and the Ministry of the Economy.
We have to believe it.
And we believe in it.
Everyone from the music industry is with us.
The petition is signed by the three majors of the disc - Universal, Sony and Warner - and supported by independent labels, Sacem ... I remind you that the president of Snep, Bertrand Burgalat, is an artist and an independent
(Editor's note: creator and boss of the Tricatel label)
.
The artists are with us, Carla Bruni, Marc Lavoine, Jane Birkin, Eddy Mitchell, Etienne Daho, the youngest, Pomme, Bigflo and Oli, Louane, Eddy De Pretto, Hervé, Polo and Pan… What is happening is very violent for them.
They can't do concerts already.
Without sales, what do they have left?
If nothing changes, we are undermining a large part of French creation and for a long time.
This Monday, Calogero also announces that he is postponing the release of his album, which was scheduled for November 6.
I understand. When, like him, we worked on his album for two years and we learn a week before the release that all the stores will be closed, it's more than frustrating, it's violent! It's his only project of the year, it's his life that he's playing. And it is all the more unfair that Calo was very involved during the first confinement
(Editor's note: by composing an unpublished song, "We act as if", sold for the benefit of caregivers).