Paris, October 12, 2023, by Socrates George Kazolias:

Who can imagine Paris without those green boxes fixed to the walls on both banks of the river Seine where vendors, called Bouquinistes, sell rare and old books, ancient periodicals, and posters? They are as iconic to Paris as Notre Dame, the Louvre, or the Eiffel Tower. To the dismay of the Bouquinistes, the book stalls must go before the Olympic Opening Ceremony next July.

Security versus Heritage

When the president of the Paris Olympic Organizing Committee, Tony Estanguet, announced in 2022 that the opening ceremony would be held on the river Seine, security services blew a gasket.

The Paris Prefecture of Police said they couldn’t provide safety for the expected 600 thousand people who will line the river to watch the parade with over 200 boats carrying national teams and performers.

Alain Bauer, France’s leading criminologist, called the idea “a criminal folly.”

But the French government said, “make it happen” and the police got to work. The Bouquinistes are the first casualties in a security nightmare scenario.

There are some 570 of the little green boxes attached to the walls along the Quais de la Seine tended to by over 200 Bouquinistes. An estimated 59% of them, mostly along the Right Bank, are to be dismantled before the Opening Ceremony and the Bouquinistes are fighting back.

The Paris-2024 chief, Tony Estanguet, downplayed the security measure in a conference with the Anglo-American Press Association on Oct. 12 saying that only “around 40% of the boxes will be dismantled.”  Estanguet insists that the decision on “whether they have to be removed for a few days or more remains with the Prefecture of Police.”

“Taking down these boxes is a logistical nightmare,” said Pascal Corseaux, vice-president of the Association Culturelle des Bouquinistes de Paris.  “Many of them won’t survive.” 

Some of the boxes attached to the walls are 100 years old.

It is ironic that Estanguet stresses how the games are meant to “showcase the best of France and its national heritage,” and yet they will efface one of the most celebrated features of Paris. 

“We are a major symbol of Paris,” Corseaux said. “We have been here for 450 years. Erasing us from the landscape when the celebration of the Games is supposed to be a celebration of Paris is a bit crazy.”

The Biggest Outdoor Library in the World

“Paris is an open-air library,” says the Bouquinistes’ Association president, Jérôme Callais. 

“Paris is the only city in the world where a river flows between two rows of bookshelves,” wrote writer and poet Blaise Sanders. (1)

The German novelist, Stefen Zweig, referred to the Bouquinistes as “an encyclopedia, a roving universal catalogue.” (Le Bouquiniste Mendel, 1929) (2)

“Paris is a great reading room in a library which crosses the Seine,” wrote the philosopher, Walter Benjamin. “No city is so intimately linked to books as Paris.”

The last time the Bouquinistes were removed from the streets of Paris was in 1578 because much of what they were selling was considered subversive. They were back again with the completion of the Pont Neuf bridge in 1607 and have been here ever since. (3)

Although removing the boxes is officially for security, some Bouquinistes fear this could spell the end for many of them.

“The hidden reason is we hide the view,” Bouquiniste Albert Abid told Le Monde newspaper. “But we aren’t the only ones in the way – the trees too. Will they take them down?”

The Bouquinistes are asking the police to send mine clearing specialists to seal the boxes for the ceremony so they can be reopened immediately afterwards. A petition has nearly 200,000 signatures.

On October 5, 2023, the Bouquinistes got the backing of the prestigious Académie française which groups France’s elite writers, scholars, artists, and scientists.  They said if the Prefecture persists with taking down the boxes they want “the competent authorities to commit to replacing the emblematic book boxes in their place, exactly as they were…and to compensate the bouquinistes for any harm suffered.”

“Paris City Hall is studying how long it will take to dismantle the boxes,” Estanguet said. “They will be put back right after the ceremony.”

The Bouquinistes are not so sure. “We are retailers, and we need to live,” says Pascal Corseaux. “Removing the boxes means taking away our livelihood.”

NOTES:

Blaise Sanders, Bourlinguer, 1948

Stephen Zweig, Buchmendel, 1929

Nicolas d’Estienne d’Orves, Dictionnaire amoureux de Paris, 2015.

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