No decision Thursday concerning the fate of Paris’ second-hand booksellers and their hundreds of green boxes, which must be moved before the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games: the Police Prefecture will leave time for “dialogue” and feasibility tests .
A tripartite meeting lasting more than two hours between second-hand booksellers, Paris City Hall and the State was held late Thursday afternoon at the Police Prefecture, “in a tense climate” for some, with “ somewhat lively discussions” for the others. At the heart of the exchange, the dismantling, storage and replacement of nearly 600 of the 900 “green wagon” boxes announced by the Police Prefecture in a letter addressed to second-hand booksellers on July 25.
These boxes, attached to the parapet overlooking the quays of the Seine in the center of the capital and containing second-hand books, souvenirs and other curiosities, are considered to represent a security issue in the context of the opening ceremony of the Games, which must take place on the Seine next summer. While waiting to issue a decree, “the Prefect of Police agreed that tests be carried out on three, four boxes” of different invoices to assess the feasibility of the move. He also committed to “reviewing the linearity” of the boxes to be moved to possibly reduce the list, explained the stakeholders.
Above all, it made it possible to “renew a necessary dialogue, which was the objective of the meeting”, affirmed at the exit the deputy of the town hall in charge of the Olympic and Paralympic Games, Pierre Rabadan. “The city is very attached to second-hand booksellers and their heritage history” but also takes into account “the security constraints which require decision-making by the Prefect of Police,” underlined Laurent Nuñez. For book sellers, for whom there are “as many scenarios as there are boxes”, these tests will be an opportunity “to demonstrate the validity of (their) arguments”: the diversity and complexity of the structures of the boxes , in place for sometimes a century, make the operation impossible, according to Pascal Corseaux, vice-president of the cultural association of Paris second-hand booksellers.
Present in the Parisian setting for 450 years, second-hand booksellers covet the UNESCO World Heritage listing, already granted to the banks of the Seine in 1991.