The French Academy said on Friday it was “very concerned” about the future of Paris’ second-hand booksellers, who are demanding to keep their boxes on the banks of the Seine, and called for them to be “compensated” if they did not obtain satisfaction. These sellers of old and second-hand books are threatened with having their “green wagon” wooden boxes removed for the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games, scheduled for the Seine on July 26, 2024.
The subject was discussed during the Academy session on Thursday, the first under the leadership of new permanent secretary Amin Maalouf. “The French Academy has shown itself to be very concerned about the threats weighing on the future of second-hand booksellers on the banks of the Seine, who have for centuries constituted an important element of the cultural heritage of our country,” wrote the Academy.
“If dismantling measures were to be decided in the run-up to the Olympic Games, we ask the competent authorities to make a commitment now to put the emblematic boxes of books back in their place, identically, as soon as the end of the Games, and to compensate book sellers for the damage suffered,” she added.
Book sellers believe that many of their colleagues will not be able to survive the weeks of inactivity imposed by dismantling, restoring and reassembling their boxes. Informed that they will have to give way by a letter from the police headquarters received one year before the deadline, they have since fought to ensure that these boxes remain in place, sealed during the preparations for the ceremony and ready to reopen quickly Next.
A meeting on September 28 with the police headquarters, town hall and the state resulted in the promise of “tests” to see if the operation to remove these boxes was feasible and not too damaging. Other support, singer Pierre Perret published a Plea for sad clowns who want the death of second-hand booksellers on social networks on Thursday. The online petition on change.org to ask for the boxes to be maintained reached 163,000 signatures on Friday.
