Illustrative photo of a bookstore.

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ALLILI MOURAD / SIPA

  • In Le Mans, booksellers are protesting against the new “unfair” restrictions forcing them to close.

  • One of them continued to welcome customers this Friday.

They decided to enter into resistance.

Independent bookstores from Le Mans are mobilizing against the new “unfair” restrictions forcing them to close.

This Friday, one of them even decided to open its doors to customers.

For Samuel Chauveau, manager of the BD Bulle bookstore, the government's decision to close the bookstores was “the last straw”.

"Like a thunderclap, we learned that Fnac remained open," he said.

"This morning we were a hundred in the street, and in front of the media, we opened the bookstore, welcoming three to four people at a time, obviously respecting the sanitary measures," said the bookseller.

El librero inglés que desafía la orden de cierre durante el #confinamiento.

“If the Fnac abre nosotros también”.

#SamuelChauveau # librerías pic.twitter.com/CdVi3fwJvy

- Almudena Ariza (@almuariza) October 30, 2020

Injustice

“We are not asking to reopen but we are asking that the others be closed,” emphasizes Samuel Chauveau.

“Not only do large-scale distribution on the outskirts sell everything they want, but

blockbusters

, literary prices are coming, I find that unfair,” he believes.

Samuel Chauveau, who took the head of a sling of Manceaux bookstores, denounces the way in which independent bookstores are treated in the management of the pandemic.

"We are following all the health measures requested, but the injustice is that we must stop, while we know that it is in the large distribution that the contaminations are the most important", he denounced.

According to him, "all authors who release their books, who have worked for years, will suffer" from this restriction.

Fnac and Amazon in the sights

If the Bulle bookstore, which employs 12 employees, was the only one to open on Friday, six other bookstores have chosen to respect the authorized framework while being united.

The Thuard bookstore continued to serve its customers via a large drive by reservation for around thirty customers during the day.

For Anne-Sophie Thuard, who employs 18 people and three apprentices, "it is an injustice that Fnac sells books when it is close to home".

“But perhaps the biggest anxiety comes from Amazon: I'm crying,” said this Franco-Dutch bookseller.

Friday evening, faced with the outcry, Fnac decided to close all the culture departments of its stores.

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  • Covid 19

  • Coronavirus

  • Le Mans

  • Bookstore

  • Society

  • Culture

  • Confinement