Paris 2024 Olympic Games: “Anyone who loses their exploded boxes will find themselves without income and without compensation”, the second-hand booksellers protested before the Games

Les bouquinistes vont contester en justice le démontage de leurs boîtes. MAXPPP – Bruno Levesque

Paris second-hand booksellers will challenge in court the announced dismantling of hundreds of their boxes along the Seine in preparation for the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games on July 26, they announced Friday at the Paris office. AFP.

During the general assembly of the Cultural Association of Booksellers of Paris, nearly 130 of them (out of around 180 members) decided to # 39;take "legal action in the administrative court" to contest this operation, indicated the president, Jérôme Callais.

"The fact that this action was voted unanimously by the members (…) is commensurate with the stakes and dramatic consequences that such a withdrawal would have", commented for AFP their lawyer, Matthieu Chirez.

The second-hand booksellers of Paris. MAXPPP – Bruno Levesque

Monday, the police headquarters, which justifies this withdrawal of "a few days" by security requirements, had taken a step towards the second-hand booksellers by agreeing "to sacrifice certain areas which will therefore not be open to the public (…) which makes it possible to save more than 170 boxes".

The number of dismantled boxes decreasing

The number of dismantled boxes would thus only reach 428 instead of 604, "or less than half (47%)" of the 932 stowed at the quays of the Seine, the prefecture specified.

Despite this proposal, which for him amounts to an "amicable compromise", Mr. Callais felt that the second-hand booksellers had &quot ;nothing to lose" by going before the judge.

The booksellers will ask him for "non-removal" boxes or, "as a last resort", compensation and "dignified and respectful treatment" of their small open-air bookstores, listed as French intangible cultural heritage, the first step towards possible recognition as a UNESCO world heritage site.

JO de Paris 2024: le nombre de boîtes de bouquinistes retirées abaissé à 428https://t.co/vIcz1ti2I4 pic.twitter.com/LUQ6OQi2fH

— BFM Paris Île-de-France (@BFMParis) January 16, 2024

The Paris town hall, which supported this approach, now arouses the distrust of second-hand booksellers because it is they who will be responsible for removing and replacing the boxes. Booksellers fear, according to Mr. Callais, that this operation will cause "considerable damage".

"The bookseller who has lost his exploded boxes will find himself without income and without compensation", he insisted.