Friday evening, the Paris town hall deployed great resources to dismantle four of these emblematic boxes of the capital – before reassembling them -, a feasibility test before the Olympic Games.
Suspended three meters from the ground, the antique book box of a Parisian second-hand bookseller swings gently, torn from the parapet of the Quai de Seine by a large crane truck. Friday evening, the Paris town hall deployed great resources to dismantle four of these emblematic boxes of the capital, a feasibility test before the Olympic Games. For security reasons, the Paris police headquarters is demanding the dismantling of nearly 600 of the 900 wagon green boxes before the opening ceremony on July 26, 2024, which will take place on the river.
In front of a small group of dismayed booksellers, around twenty city agents, helped by a moving company, spent several hours carrying out this removal, after having carefully emptied the hundreds of books that were piled up there. A crane then lifted these large rectangles of wood one by one, often weakened by age and bad weather. The boxes that were removed had been attached to the dock for fifty years, but the oldest are 150 years old.
It’s like pulling teeth! All this for four hours of ceremony! What the wars failed to do, the Olympics will achieve: make us disappear. »
A bookseller
“It’s like pulling teeth! All this for four hours of ceremony! What the wars failed to do, the Olympics will achieve: make us disappear”, laments to AFP Michel Bouetard, secretary general of the Booksellers’ Association. “This is all excessive. If we remove them, you never know when they will come back”warns Jérôme Callais, president of the association. “But if they persist in wanting to remove them, we will go to litigation.” Many book sellers – there are around 230 – have no other income. “What will they do in the event of several weeks of inactivity?”he worries.
Some Parisian elected officials came to support them. “We are against it, all this is decided to be able to advertise on the quays”, gets angry Corine Faugeron, president of the Les Ecologistes group at the Council of Paris. Others call on Emmanuel Macron. “I met him when he passed Quai des Grands Augustins in mid-October. He told us “I am aware, I defend you, you are part of Paris“. But he is superior to the prefect, he can tell him to make us stay”exclaims Francis Robert, book seller for 43 years. “Why remove them, since safety barriers will be placed 1.50 meters from the platform?” added one of her colleagues.
“It’s a historic moment”
During this time, the town hall agents managed to hoist the boxes into the truck, without apparent damage. “It’s a historic moment”, stammers a bookseller with tears in her eyes. Another remains silent, his gaze hard, riveted on the bare parapet. Around half past midnight, the boxes were put back on the parapet and the books placed back inside, as planned. Saturday morning, Paris town hall has planned a conference to review the dismantling test, which will have taken three hours. The large-scale operation will require the use of a service provider.