Many actors of the republic of letters support the bookstore and call on the President of the Republic and the government to make an exception and to open these signs because reading is essential.
The Académie Goncourt, followed by almost all the other prizes, has even suspended the proclamation of its winner while waiting for the books to be sold by independent bookstores.
Read also: Closing of bookstores: in the chapter of unreason
One of its members, Philippe Claudel, goes even further.
While emphasizing that his column is written outside the decision of the Goncourt Academy, he calls for disobedience and advocates the opening of bookstores despite the ban by public authorities.
We deliver his platform
in extenso
.
“Booksellers, please disobey!
For us, readers, writers, writers, open your businesses which are essential to us.
Essential for thinking, essential for dreaming, essential for meeting us through books, for knowing ourselves, understanding ourselves and understanding the world.
Booksellers, please disobey!
In these times when our society is subject to many fears and questions, the culture of books, their transmission and their access, are essential, whatever the government thinks, for each citizen.
Booksellers, please disobey!
So that our youth, to whom we ask for reflection and measure, depth and tolerance, know that the book trade is a fundamental pillar of any society that wants to be enlightened and enlightening.
Bookseller, please disobey!
Open your bookstores, to everyone, while respecting barrier gestures and health precautions, so that culture takes its rightful place, and that ignorance does not kill more than any virus. "
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- Reconfinement: forced to close, booksellers fear unfair competition