Paris town hall employees remove a book box from a Parisian quay, Friday November 17, 2023 in Paris. MIGUEL MEDINA / AFP
The operation was expected, closely scrutinized, and was supposed to give an overview of one of the issues linked to the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games (OG) in Paris. On the evening of Friday, November 17, a “feasibility test” was deployed to dismantle four of the emblematic second-hand booksellers’ book boxes established on the quays of the Seine, which the Paris police headquarters is demanding be dismantled – nearly 600 on the 900 existing – for security reasons, before the opening ceremony on July 26, 2024, which will take place on the river.
Read also: Article reserved for our subscribers The 2024 Olympics, subject of conflict between second-hand booksellers and Paris City Hall
Under the eyes of a small group of dismayed second-hand booksellers, around twenty city agents, accompanied by a moving company, carried out this removal – which took several hours – after having carefully emptied the hundreds of books which piled up in the boxes. One by one, these large rectangles of wagon green wood, emblematic of the French capital, were lifted by a crane, and delicately torn from the parapet.
For this test, the boxes selected had been attached to the quay for fifty years, but the oldest of the approximately 900 Parisian boxes are 150 years old, and the second-hand booksellers feared that their removal would sound the death knell for this equipment, often weakened by the years and bad weather.
“It’s like pulling teeth! All this for four hours of ceremony! What wars failed to do, the Olympics will achieve: make us disappear”regretted Michel Bouetard, secretary general of the Association of Booksellers, interviewed by Agence-France-Presse (AFP). “This is all blown out of proportion. If we remove them, you never know when they will come back”added Jérôme Callais, president of the association. “But if they persist in wanting to remove them, we will go to litigation. »
“The test was done quite cleanly”
For several months, the question of these little green boxes which have become one of the symbols of Paris has taken a political turn. And several Parisian elected officials came to support the approximately 230 second-hand booksellers, many of whom have no other income, and are worried about the idea of “several weeks of inactivity” during the Olympics. “We are against it, all this is decided to be able to advertise on the quays”, annoyed Corine Faugeron, president of the Les Ecologistes group at the Council of Paris; when others called on Emmanuel Macron.
Also read the story: Article reserved for our subscribers Olympic Games 2024: in Paris, the movement of second-hand booksellers takes a political turn
Saturday morning, the Paris town hall welcomed the good progress of the test. “Today we are certain that we can move, that is to say, place and then put back the boxes in good conditions and in a reasonable time”, assured Pierre Rabadan, the deputy in charge of sport and the Olympics at town hall. It is now necessary “take stock of the number of boxes” to remove and “detail the time it will take”. At his side, the police prefect, Laurent Nunez, insisted that the boxes would be requested to be removed “only when strictly necessary, in particular for security reasons”specifying that he wanted to continue the reflection “in very close contact with second-hand book sellers”and highlighting their “importance for the appeal of the capital”.
After being hoisted onto a truck without incident, the four boxes subject to the feasibility test found their place on the parapet, Friday around midnight. And their books placed back inside. “ The test was done quite cleanly, recognized the president of the Association of Booksellers, Jérôme Callais, on Saturday. They were lucky, the boxes were of very good quality, very solid, that won’t be the case for all of them. » Among the many issues linked to the organization of the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics on the Seine – where it usually takes place in a stadium – the question of book boxes is undoubtedly not entirely resolved . But the first dismantling attempt did not prove right those who anticipated the destruction of these objects which had become an integral part of Parisian life.
Our selection of articles on the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games
Find all our content on the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games:
The question of the presence of Russian and Belarusian athletes
The International Paralympic Committee changes course and opens the door to Russian athletes
The government steps on the accelerator to close the accessibility gap
Making physical and sporting activities accessible to all with the “Inclusive Club” program
Paris 2024 opening ceremony: public authorities are leaning towards around 300,000 spectators with free access
Efforts to train private security agents should not be enough to be there for the Games
Paris 2024: the use of the army to ensure the security of sites has been planned from 2019
The organizer of the Games draws on its reserves to ensure its budget is balanced
What the State and communities finance for the Olympic and Paralympic Games
The preparation of French athletes
In Saint-Malo, French athletics mobilizes in the final Olympic straight
Bercy anticipates 138 Olympic and Paralympic medalists
Florent Manaudou: “At the 2024 Paris Olympics, we will have good results because we are at home, but we are not a sports country”
In Tahiti, the Olympic Games no longer know which wave to surf
Senators are concerned about the “risks weighing” on the delivery of certain Olympic works
Making the Seine swimmable by 2024, the immense challenge to take on before the Paris Olympics
Opening of RATP buses to competition in Paris: the spread of the timetable until the end of 2026 approved by the Senate
The Olympics will mobilize 181,000 jobs, but we still have to fill them
Seine-Saint-Denis and the Games
Seine-Saint-Denis, at the heart of the Paralympic marathon and para-cycling
“I feel like I’m going to see a lot of things that I’ve never seen, even from the street”
Ongoing legal investigations
Winter Games 2030 and 2034: a Paris 2024 framework targeted by a complaint
One year before the Olympics, the specter of business hovers over Paris 2024
The Olympic Torch Relay
Against a backdrop of social tensions, the Parisian route of the torch relay revealed
Environmental issues
Olympic flying taxis deemed too noisy and too greedy by the Environmental Authority
The difficult challenge of the “green” Olympic Games
The societal issues that the Games highlight
School sport is still looking for the right formula
Sport at school and outside: in Aulnay-sous-Bois, handball motivates teenage girls
In Paris, the movement of second-hand booksellers suspended from « tests »
The Paris 2024 Olympic Games accelerate the transformation of North-East Paris
The Games are not just Paris and Seine-Saint-Denis
Communities seeking a share of the “Olympics effect” with Games preparation centers
In Espalion, on the occasion of the Olympic Games, “we want to talk about our city, make it known”
“They came to see meumeus, they will have seen athletes”, the Verdun Fair at the time of the Games
See more See less
2023-11-18 14:46:29
#successful #test #book #boxes #removed #Parisian #quays #preparation #opening #ceremony
