Reconfinement: bookstores are closing, book shelves in supermarkets too
Saleswoman in a bookstore in Mulhouse, May 11, 2020 (Photo of illustration).
SEBASTIEN BOZON / AFP
Text by: RFI Follow
3 min
Faced with the closure of independent bookstores in France due to the new confinement, the controversy is growing.
After postponed literary prices and calls to boycott Amazon, the government decided this Friday, October 30 that large retailers should temporarily close their books and culture departments.
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The announcement comes as many cultural players regretted that bookstores must remain closed under the rules governing the new confinement.
Bookstores are not on the list of so-called "essential" businesses authorized by the government to remain open during lockdown.
However, they can make deliveries or offer the pick-up of orders, at the door of the store, what is called click and collect.
La Fnac and Darty, essential shops
Earlier on Friday, the Fnac-Darty group - whose stores will remain open during confinement - also announced that it would close its culture departments for the next 15 days, "
for the sake of responsibility
".
The 300 or so Fnac and 500 Darty stores, considered essential businesses, do not wish to compete unfairly with bookstores.
A decision that has weight coming from the leading bookseller in France.
As of this Saturday morning, all of the group's culture departments will therefore be closed for the next 15 days, pending new announcements from the French government.
There was no question of closing everything, however, because the beginning of the holiday season constitutes the bulk of sales and the result of the multi-specialist brand.
Calls to reopen bookstores also come from political ranks: from the former French President François Hollande, the mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo or the former Minister of Culture Jack Lang.
They consider access to culture as essential, while literary critic François Busnel has created an online petition to recall that with the closure of bookstores, the country would deprive itself "
of its best battalion to face obscurantism
".
►Also read: Faced with Amazon, independent bookstores are resisting
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