To close bookstores is to "deprive us of the best battalion to face obscurantism", pleads the presenter of "La Grande Librairie", François Busnel.

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Jean-philippe BALTEL for FTV

Deemed to be non-essential businesses, bookstores are once again forced to pull back the curtain due to the lockdown, leaving the field open to online book-selling giants like Amazon.

Literary critic François Busnel announced on franceinfo on Friday that he was going to launch an online petition to demand the reopening of bookstores, a measure also defended by many personalities.

According to the journalist and presenter of the literary program of France 5

La grande librairie

, by closing the book dealers, France is depriving itself of its "best battalion to enable us to face obscurantism".

"Condemning a whole section of the cultural economy"

“There are millions of people in this country, and we saw it just after the first confinement, who want to read, who need to read.

To close bookstores is to condemn an ​​entire section of the cultural economy, no doubt to falter, for some to disappear, ”François Busnel underlined.

And the government is making "a huge gift to a company that begins with Ama and ends with Zon, whose tax practices we know", he added.

The literary critic asks that President Emmanuel Macron receive the syndicate of booksellers of France, the national syndicate of publishers, and writers, so that they can plead in favor of a reopening.

"Let us leave bookstores and libraries open"

Other personalities, including the PS mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo, called for leaving bookstores open, believing that access to reading was as essential to the Nation as other activities that have benefited from exemptions.

"Let us leave open bookstores, libraries, we need this function, to escape," for his part launched François Hollande Thursday, in the television program

Livres & vous

on Public Senate.

The Goncourt Prize, which was to be awarded on November 10, was postponed Thursday, sine die, out of "solidarity" with bookstores.

The Friday Prize for Teenage Literature, which was to be awarded on Monday, has also been postponed, we learned on Friday.

Books

Containment: Postponement of the Goncourt prize out of "solidarity" with bookstores forced to close

Culture

Containment: Bookstores request an exemption to remain open

  • Confinement

  • Goncourt

  • Culture

  • Bookstore

  • Literature