It’s not like he just discovered the project. For months or even years, the organizing committee for the Paris Olympic Games has been working on an atypical opening ceremony: a river parade on the Seine. Never seen before and never done approved by Emmanuel Macron. But less than six months before D-Day, the Head of State has just given up on the planned movement of the second-hand booksellers’ boxes installed on the banks of the Seine for the evening of July 26.
The Elysée announced this Tuesday, February 13 at the end of a meeting in the presence of the management of the Olympic organizing committee. Beforehand, opponents of the dismantling had circulated an argument summarizing their position.
“Noting that no consensual and reassuring solution could be identified with these actors”, Emmanuel Macron has asked the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, and the Paris police prefect, Laurent Nunez that “all the second-hand book sellers are preserved, and that none of them is forced to be moved”, we explained from the same source. According to his entourage, the head of state thus manifested to them “its attention considering that it is a living heritage of the capital”.
“This decision is the result of what we have been patiently putting in place for months, greets Me Matthieu Chirez, lawyer for second-hand booksellers questioned by Release. It is also proof that it was not a fight of culture against sport and that the two can go very well together.
Portions of high platforms without public
Citing security requirements, the police headquarters had planned a withdrawal of “A few days” of some of the second-hand booksellers’ boxes, which also posed a problem for the view of the river spectacle from the high quays. For the Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCI) of Paris, questioned Tuesday by the Parisian, “This is rather good news […] The problem was security-related, they certainly found a solution to secure the platforms while maintaining the boxes.”
A compromise solution had been considered to dismantle only part of it, but without satisfying the second-hand booksellers who decided in mid-January to take legal action, which was to be filed this week. “Judicially, we had all the arguments to reach a positive decision for the second-hand booksellers”argues Me Chirez.
By leaving the iconic wagon green boxes in place, we automatically reduce the number of potential spectators. For the designers of the evening of July 26, the puzzle will therefore become more complex since the Head of State requested that the security system “be adapted accordingly, the spaces concerned on the high platforms are therefore no longer likely to accommodate the public during the ceremony”.
According to a source close to the matter, this presidential decision has in fact already been taken into account in the gauge revised downwards at the end of January to around 300,000 spectators. Gerald Darmanin “will return to the entire security device from the opening ceremony to the end of March, once all consultations with local elected officials and stakeholders have been completed.specified the Elysée.
At the end of July 2023, bookstores were suddenly informed that, for security reasons, several hundred boxes of books installed along the platforms would have to be temporarily moved a few days before the opening ceremony.
In November, the Paris town hall tested the dismantling and reassembly of these wooden boxes, some of which are 150 years old. The technical test had turned into an ordeal lasting several hours. The second-hand booksellers particularly highlighted the fragility of these boxes in their refusal to free the banks of the Seine, believing that many of their colleagues would not be able to survive the weeks of inactivity imposed by the relocation operation.
Update at 8:25 p.m. with reactions from the booksellers’ lawyer, Me Chirez.