The booksellers installed on the banks of the Seine will not be celebrating the Olympics. The town hall of Paris announced to them during a meeting on July 10 that their green boxes will have to be moved for the opening ceremony of the 2024 Olympics, which must take place on the river. They would prevent the public from seeing the festivities properly from the quays and would pose security problems. The police headquarters is even formal: it is “essential” that their shops be dismantled.
Francis Robert, bookseller who has been officiating on the Quai des Grands-Augustins since 1980, is not losing his temper. “We have been on the quays since Henri IV and we are one of the monuments of Paris. We’re not going to move Notre-Dame, so why should we leave?” he pretends to wonder. His colleague Gabriel de Freitas, installed opposite the Institut de France shares his resentment. “It’s totally stupid since they want to hold an opening ceremony on the banks of the Seine, but Paris without the booksellers, it’s no longer Paris”, the young man is indignant.
The Parisian stalls, classified as World Heritage by Unesco, would threaten the security of the ceremony, already placed under close surveillance. But the main concerned are struggling to believe it. “We don’t really have exact information, why do our boxes present a security threat? Are they afraid that the crowd will tip them over? Or that they serve as a cabin to shelter a bomb?” wonders Géraldine Lalouette, whose boxes are located on the Quai du Louvre.
In a letter addressed to booksellers on July 25, the Paris police prefecture does not cut corners: their boxes will have to be “removed”. The prefecture relies in particular on an article of the internal security code which provides for a perimeter where “the access and movement of people are regulated” in order to ensure the security of a “place or event exposed to a risk of acts of terrorism”.
The town hall would have mentioned a demining service carried out during the Olympics. “We will have to close for two weeks from July 26, specifies Gabriel de Freitas. And we will have to be there to open because there will be a demining service that will pass.
Booksellers located on the right bank of the Seine, on the side of the river on which the 10,000 Olympic athletes will parade, would be the most impacted. For Francis Robert, removing all the boxes is a sweet dream. “It’s completely crazy, out of 240 booksellers, there would be around 150 to move, and there are four boxes per bookseller. You have to remove the books, store them, associate them correctly with such a bookseller and then remove the boxes. Allow at least one day to remove a set of boxes. The entire right bank should be impacted. How many employees and trucks will be needed? Where will the books be stored? All that for four hours of ceremony, ”he protests.
“Dismantling the boxes is a completely unrealistic decision taken by technocrats who want us to believe that the decision is irrevocable,” said Jérôme Callais, president of the cultural association of booksellers in Paris.
The town hall of Paris mentioned the possibility of setting up a village of booksellers, dedicated to green boxes during the event. An idea quickly swept away by Gabriel de Freitas “The booksellers are on the banks of the Seine, not in Bastille!”, In reference to the place where the town hall would have proposed to relocate the professionals.
The dispute also threatens the financial balance of booksellers, since no compensation is provided to compensate for the loss of earnings they may suffer during the Olympics. “Booksellers will find themselves without income for months, given the time it would take to store and put all the books back on sale,” continues Jérôme Callais. A whole organization that would take “at least for a year before a return to normal” judges Gabriel de Freitas for its part.
To compensate them, the town hall of Paris has already offered professionals to renovate their boxes. “To repair, the bookseller must be present because each box is different, nothing is standardized”, specifies Gabriel de Freitas. For Guido, another bookseller whose books are sold at the Quai du Louvre, the whole problem would come from the Olympic Committee. “We are going to remove the boxes and have platforms built, all that so that the spectators will spend crazy sums of money to see the ceremony”, laments the professional.
Booksellers have until the end of August to announce their decision. Among the professionals, the rebellion is organized. “The booksellers must refuse categorically, we will chain ourselves to our boxes if necessary!” jokes Francis Robert. Guido brings up the idea of “contacting lawyers”. For his part, Jérôme Callais is counting on the “global sympathy capital” of booksellers to receive vast support from the general public.
The battle is still undecided. Although the city owns the places where the booksellers sell their books, they are the only owners of the green boxes. Will the town hall be able to force booksellers to move against their will? According to their representatives, of the 240 booksellers in the city, only two have agreed to withdraw their stalls for the moment.