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After the Covid, the Paris town hall is looking for booksellers ... desperately

2021-11-09T06:26:20.434Z


The city councilors of the capital are launching an appeal to find candidates for the resumption of cultural stalls that line the quays of the Seine, weakened first by the demonstrations of yellow vests and then by confinements.


According to article 1 of the booksellers' regulations, the operation of boxes falls under the parking permit regime ... and yet, booksellers have been writing a bit of the legend of Paris since the 16th century.

In 1649, an edict prohibited peddlers from selling books on the Pont-Neuf.

Baudelaire, the incomparable author of the

Spleen de Paris

, said that he had found a rare engraving of Eustache-Hyacinthe Langlois at one of the booksellers on the banks of the Seine.

In short, like the Île Saint-Louis, like Notre-Dame, like the Place Saint-Michel ... the green wagon boxes loaded with rare books and prints, which follow the winding river of the capital, provide a living for many people. the history of France in the minds of curious people and tourists from four continents to discover the City of Light.

Read alsoAfter Boulinier, Parisian booksellers launch an SOS so as not to drown in the Seine

But since the repeated confinements, Covid obliges, and even before with the endless weekly demonstrations of yellow vests, the historic corporation of booksellers has seen, little by little, its members go out of business.

Faced with what looks more and more like a future tourist disaster which could in the short and medium term drastically lower the attractiveness of the capital, the city of Paris, like an SOS, has just launched on its Paris.fr site, a call for applications in order to find new booksellers capable of supporting the boxes left vacant since the various crises.

Read also Booksellers between despair and renewal

The mayor of Paris, which allocates the locations after having obtained the opinion of an optional council made up of elected officials and booksellers, has decided to leave registration open until February 18, 2022. The city councilors of the capital apparently hold that the spirit of these stalls with artistic vocation be respected as she wrote in black and white in her call for applications: "

The motivation to practice for this atypical profession, the quality and the economic viability of the project will be particularly studied. .

"

A beginning of salutary recognition by the municipal officials of the difficulties of this old and beautiful Parisian profession, who currently see the majority of managers of green wagon boxes, according to Jérôme Callais the president of the Cultural Association of Booksellers of Paris, only winning ""

five to ten euros per day

”.

Source: lefigaro

All news articles on 2021-11-09

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