The 2024 Paris Olympics’ opening ceremony will be held on the famed River Seine in Paris, France, in July. It will be the first time in the Games’ history that the event will take place outside. But for the booksellers who have a centuries-old sanctuary on the river banks, that day is not so welcome.
The city of Paris vowed to deliver an extraordinary grand opening on July 26 next year. It is expected to draw about 600,000 spectators. As a result, the Paris police prefecture ordered 570 “stationary boxes” to be removed a day before the ceremony. These are street stands out of which booksellers have operated for decades on the quays of the Seine.
The prefecture fears that the boxes could be used to conceal explosive devices during the ceremony. While hundreds of thousands of spectators watch, more than 10,500 athletes will parade along the river. Security is a top concern.
The dark-green boxes brim with enticing wares for the literate. Many have not been moved in decades. Others have stood in the same spot for over a century! Booksellers are resisting the demand to move. They are concerned about damage to the boxes, now deemed historical in nature, if they are removed.
“We are a symbol of Paris,” says Jérôme Callais. He heads the Cultural Association of Booksellers of Paris. He’s also a vendor who has sold books on the quayside since the 1990s. “It’s as if the prefecture decided that the Eiffel Tower was too high and that the third and second floors had to be removed because they came within the scope of the cameras during the ceremony.”
Paris city hall offered to renovate or replace the boxes at no cost after removal. But the booksellers’ association, which has 200 members, says they must stay as they are.
“We agree that we will not move,” adds Callais. “We can have a conversation, but it’s out of the question to touch our boxes.”
The booksellers’ association proposed that the boxes be sealed before and throughout the Olympics’ opening ceremony.
Security is not the only concern, says Pierre Rabadan, deputy mayor of Paris. Rabadan insists that the boxes need to be removed because they obstruct the view.
However, Parisians and tourists like American Kevin Davis consider the book-lined quays to be one of the city’s quintessential views—not to be missed. “It’s what Paris is. . . . Can you imagine coming here and not seeing this?” he says.
“They should also remove all the trees then,” quips Jérôme Piel, a French visitor from Normandy.
Paris 2024 Olympic organizing committee president Tony Estanguet says hosting such a major event “would not come without consequences” to local traditions. Will the two sides find a respectful way to work together without allowing harm to anyone involved?
“Booksellers are part of our history,” Estanguet says. But “their proximity (to the Seine) means that for some of them, there is an incompatibility with the normal organization of the Games. . . . So we must find solutions.”
“We’re taking the sport out of the stadiums, and we’re going into the city,” Estanguet adds. “We’ll have to close roads. We’ll have to change the habits of local residents, businesses, and booksellers, because we are in the city. It’s once every 100 years.”
A petition demanding the safeguarding of the open-air bookshops launched last month. It has over 120,000 signatures.
“The only thing we ask is that they don’t touch our boxes,” Callais says. “We are fragile enough as it is. We want to last a few more centuries.”
Vive des livres!
