The Paris City Hall received 71 applications to replace 18 booksellers from the quays of the Seine departing among 240 professionals of this Parisian institution threatened by the health crisis, she welcomed Tuesday to AFP. “This is the largest number of candidates for ten years”, rejoiced Olivia Polski, the trade assistant (PS) who had launched a call for applications, closed on Friday, via the specialized press and communication media. municipal.
Olivia Polski, who said she was looking for “book specialists to keep the largest open-air bookstore in the world going”, thinks she has found the right profiles with candidates “second-hand goods dealers, reading enthusiasts, artists”. A commission will select on March 11 the future owners of these boxes with strictly regulated dimensions and well known to tourists, on the banks of the Seine: between Saint-Paul and the Tuileries on the right bank, the Institute of the Arab world and the Orsay museum. Left Bank.
No royalty to pay
The new booksellers will have to buy the boxes from the departing owners but will not pay a fee, an exception decided by the town hall to protect these booksellers of old and second-hand books, a centuries-old tradition in the heart of the capital. After administrative checks and redemption of boxes, the 18 future booksellers will be able to start working in the summer, said Olivia Polski.
Weakened successively by the challenge of “yellow vests” and its excesses then by the Covid-19 pandemic, which forced them to close during the first two confinements, the booksellers experienced a “difficult period” and “some have returned less” open their boxes to walkers, recounts the assistant. To give a boost to their activity, the booksellers have submitted, with the support of the City of Paris, their application to obtain their registration by Unesco as a world intangible heritage.