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"With the disappearance of the young Gibert, it is a part of ourselves that is disappearing!"

2021-02-22T10:49:21.317Z


FIGAROVOX / TRIBUNE - In Paris, 4 of the 6 Gibert Jeune stores in the 5th and 6th arrondissements will close. For Eric Anceau, lecturer at the Sorbonne, this disappearance is the symbol of the loss of influence of the capital and the gradual disappearance of the "cultural exception ...


Éric Anceau is a lecturer at Sorbonne University, the associate professor of history is the author of numerous works on the Second Empire and the war of 1870, in particular

“They made and defeated the Second Empire”

(Tallandier, 2019) .

When I learned on Saturday that Gibert would be closing four of its historic stores in the Latin Quarter on Saturday, I was overcome with great emotion.

Since my earliest childhood, I have frequented them regularly, faithfully and, I dare say it, passionately.

We all have our Proust madeleines and, among mine, these stores with yellow signs bearing a Frédéric Moreau straight out of Sentimental Education, occupy a special place.

Two of the strongest moments of my young years took place there ritualistically: the purchase of supplies at the start of the school year and that of holiday readings at the end of the school year, many of which are still in my library and carry the famous yellow label or store stamp.

Today, the proximity of the Sorbonne where I teach means that I still buy books there very regularly.

Read also:

"Amazon and bookstores represent two contradictory visions of the world"

These bookstores were there long before my birth and even the installation of my family since the Gibert sign has been present since 1888, when a former professor of classical letters founded, quai Saint-Michel, a first store specializing in sales. second-hand school book.

When he died in 1915, his two sons succeeded him then, in 1929, the eldest Joseph Gibert opened his own bookstore not far from the historic store, which the youngest, Régis, continued to manage under the banner of Gibert Young.

When I became their client, the two separate businesses were flourishing, with bookstores and stationers on Boulevard and Quai Saint-Michel, but also now others in Paris, in the suburbs and in many large provincial towns.

I never suspected such a tragic outcome for Gibert Jeune, an institution in the capital and the Latin Quarter, close to the beating heart of French publishing.

Since then, I knew that the tide had turned and that, faced with new consumption habits, competition from online shopping and giants like Amazon, the sector was in difficulty.

I had also learned that in 2017 Gibert Jeune, on the verge of bankruptcy, had been bought by Gibert Joseph, but that the latter's business was no longer so prosperous, several of its points of sale outside Paris having been placed, in turn, in compulsory liquidation.

When its competitor Boulinier closed its historic store last year, I was moved by it and published a column with a colleague, in Le Figaro, to underline the threat that threatened, made even worse by the health crisis.

Since then, we have seen several other bookstores shut down, including Broglie, in the center of Strasbourg.

However, I did not suspect such a tragic outcome, nor so close for Gibert Jeune, an institution in the capital and the Latin Quarter, close to the Sorbonne and the beating heart of French publishing.

To read also:

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This is to say my sadness of Saturday that I shared on social networks.

I didn't think she would get so many reactions.

My Twitter post alone totaled, in a few hours, over 1.5 million views, thousands of shares and hundreds of comments, emotion but also anger.

Senator Nathalie Goulet wrote: “

I am talking about a time that the under 20s cannot know.

I entered for a specific purchase, I stayed there for hours as in Ali Baba's cave… sucked in by the rays… a book is still something other than a screen!

"And several anonymous:"

The death of my twenty years

","

A stroke of the blues

","

My heart is broken

", but a multitude of students and high school students also relayed and underlined their sorrow, showing that Gibert had known how to stay young.

This Finn unfortunately sums up the feeling of many: "There is no longer any reason to go to Paris"!

The general tone underlines the magnitude of the shock: “

A dying institution

”, “

A trauma

”, “

A tragedy

”, “

A drama for culture

”, “

A feeling of disgust

”, “

The Latin Quarter without young Gibert this is no longer the Latin Quarter

”,“

It was heritage

”.

I suspected even less that messages would emanate from the whole world, from the United States to Australia via Mexico, Peru, Brazil, a very large number of European countries and French-speaking black Africa and Japan.

Among fifty others, I will point out that of an Indian journalist: “

It's a bit of myself that has just been torn away.

These bookstores were my favorite places during my stay in Paris in 2005-2006

”, another from the Welsh professor of ancient history:“

It's a tragedy.

My favorite stores in Paris

”, this vexed memory of the famous Swiss influencer Anil Wartek:“

I had made a dedication for my book in Paris in a Gibert Jeune!

"Or that of our famous Franco-American planetologist Franck Marchis:" it

was the bookstore of my youth where I discovered and bought my first scientific books.

What sad news!

This Finn unfortunately sums up the feeling of many: "There is no longer any reason to go to Paris"!

To all those, very many, who are worried about what will be replaced by these places of knowledge sharing (ready-to-wear stores, fast-food restaurants, mobile phone shops?) And to see the Latin Quarter lose little by little to its soul, those who are more generally moved by the loss of influence of our capital and the disappearance of the famous “French cultural exception” are added.

These are indeed two real questions and I doubt that the purchase by the City of Paris of the “

Gibert

bookstore

on the Quai Saint-Michel to save it the fate of others is sufficient to answer them!

Source: lefigaro

All news articles on 2021-02-22

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