Finished the Salon du livre at the Porte de Versailles, which will have had 39 editions until 2019. This ambitious format, which was reminiscent of the Salon de l'agriculture, did not survive two consecutive cancellations due to health crisis.
Tighter, less economically dependent on attendance figures, the Festival is centered around the ephemeral Grand Palais, near the Eiffel Tower.
Admission is free but you have to book your ticket on the internet because the site only welcomes 5,500 visitors at a time, and many events are already sold out.
To discover
Discover the “Best of the Goncourt Prize” collection
Read alsoIn 2022, the Book Fair will invest the ephemeral Grand Palais and the Parisian suburbs
The organizers say they want
to "reconnect with the vital energy of the first Salon",
organized at the Grand Palais in 1981,
"rediscover the sense of celebration and allow all the players in the book chain, authors, publishers, booksellers, to celebrate the book."
Until then entrusted to a professional, Reed Expo, the organization was taken over by the Syndicat national de l'édition.
But the event encounters some setbacks: independent publishers, present in the past through the Regions, are excluded from the event.
First successful mission: bring back the big publishers
Gallimard, number three in France with his group Madrigall, had ended up abandoning this high mass.
It is now present, alongside all its competitors, including Media-Participations, Actes Sud and Albin Michel.
At the French number one, Hachette Livre, the habit had been taken to send a few publishing houses, not others.
In 2022, the main ones will be there: Grasset, Calmann-Lévy, Fayard, Stock...
Read alsoThe Editis-Hachette merger project puts the publishing world in all its states
A vernissage is scheduled for Thursday, April 20 in the evening, a social event bringing together the entire profession for the first time since the start of the Covid-19 epidemic.
Hachette will rub shoulders with its rival Editis (Robert Laffont, Presses de la Cité, Plon, Julliard).
But these two book giants are preparing to be part of the same group: Vivendi, controlled by billionaire Vincent Bolloré, has launched its takeover bid for Hachette's parent company, Lagardère.
Read alsoHachette: according to Françoise Nyssen, Vincent Bolloré's ambitions are "a political problem"
This capitalistic operation of an unprecedented scale is the subject, in the Parisian publishing world, which everyone thinks about, but which no one talks about.
It will not be without pain.
Promised to a broad domination, Vivendi will have to find the means to comply with the European rules of competition.
"Certain assets could be sold (...) The exact scope of these disposals, not identified at this stage, will be established during discussions with the European Commission",
indicates Vivendi in the explanatory note of its takeover bid.
The management of Editis has worked in recent years to build a group culture, in an environment where we more often think
of "editorial independence"
than
"synergies"
.
Although less profitable than Hachette, Editis seems to have sufficiently pushed integration into Vivendi, with its media subsidiaries, to be protected from wholesale resale by Vincent Bolloré.
Read alsoHachette-Editis merger: Antoine Gallimard “is not trying to be number 2”
Festival visitors will be far from these concerns.
They come to see the stars of literature, and to shop in this giant and temporary bookstore.
The headliners invited to round tables or signing sessions are among others Amélie Nothomb, Michel Bussi, Clara Dupont-Monod or Nicolas Mathieu.
On the occasion of the 75th anniversary of India's independence, around thirty Indian writers will join them.
