Booksellers have plied their trade along the banks of the River Seine for about 450 years, their time-battered green boxes a Paris institution as treasured as freshly baked baguettes. But this piece of French history is now at the center of a political storm after the city’s police ordered that the vendors and their stalls be relocated for “security reasons” to make way for the opening ceremony of the Summer Olympic Games in 2024.
“Are they even going to offer us the same spots again after the games?” asked bookseller Guillaume Castro, 35. He has been working by the river for seven years, his stall just by the Pont des Arts bridge. “That’s really where the saddle rubs,” said Jean-François Medioni, 53, who has sold books for eight years and runs a stand on Quai Voltaire. He suspects the city will have better things to do over the course of the Games than take care of the boxes.