The world of delivered enters into resistance. While the confinement only allows essential shops to remain open, bookstores will have to close. A decision that does not pass for the players in the sector but also for many readers.
Since Wednesday and Emmanuel Macron’s announcements, messages are flocking to social networks to demand their openness. For the occasion, the designer Riad Sattouf has split a drawing retweeted more than 1,700 times.
@emmanuelmacron @jcastexpm @roselyne_bachelot @brunolemaire @jean_michel_blanquer @SLF_Librairie @SNEedition
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.#bookstore #author #author #lecture #reader #reader #delivered pic.twitter.com/UJf8P3e6o7– Riad Sattouf (@RiadSattouf) October 29, 2020
Others, such as designer Joann Sfar estimated that these closures would mainly benefit the online sales giant, Amazon, as Christmas approaches.
Non-essential businesses … pic.twitter.com/51kEecjWv9
— Sfar Joann (@joannsfar) October 28, 2020
Thursday, a few hours before the reconfinement, many bookstores have been taken over by demanding customers.
The government stands firm
Not enough to change the government’s mind, which confirmed Thursday evening that bookstores would remain closed. “Bookstores are not currently part of the open shops. But they will be able, like the record stores besides, to organize activities of delivery and pick-up of orders, that is to say the “click and collect” “, underlined the Minister of Culture Roselyne Bachelot during the press conference on containment measures.
As with other types of signs, “We will see in 15 days with regard to the health situation if a classic opening becomes possible again”, continued the minister.
Since then, the world of culture has not disarmed. Thursday evening, the Goncourt Prize has announced that it is postponing the award ceremony through “Solidarity with booksellers”. “For academics, there is no question of handing it over so that it benefits other sales platforms”, explained the general delegate of the Goncourt Academy Françoise Rossinot.
68 senators appeal
In a tribune in Le Figaro , 68 senators also called for bookstores to be considered as “Essential shops”. “While the bad wind of obscurantism and new totalitarian ideologies blows, let us keep in mind that they are a place where the values of moderation, benevolence, tolerance and collective intelligence live”, advocate the signatories.
Finally, literary critic François Busnel has decided to launch a petition. “We have all heard the President of the Republic tell us ‘we are at war’. Why deprive us of the best battalion to enable us to face obscurantism ”, he asks about France info .
Fnac will open
And the situation does not seem about to calm down since according to information Europe1 , the management of Fnac Darty has decided to open its stores and sell both household appliances and books.
A choice that has made the boss of Bulle bookstore in Le Mans react. He is to hold a press conference at 10 am and calls on the booksellers in Le Mans to enter into resistance.
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