Saving Paris's Oldest Bookstore

Can a uniquely French dedication to culture triumph over Amazon and foreign landlords?

Victoria BaenaSep 26 2014,  Atlantic

Victoria Baena

PARIS—Nestled between cafés and tour shops on the busy Rue Saint-Honoré, the Librairie Delamain, the oldest bookstore in Paris, strikes an inconspicuous pose. Outside, tourists jostle their way through the stands and shelves on their way from the Louvre to the Comédie Française across the street, rarely pausing to glance under the gray-and-white awning.

The tempo inside the bookstore is slower, as patrons—almost all French—vie for browsing space among the cramped shelves. The president of the Constitutional Council, Jean-Louis Debré, is a regular visitor; so is Comédie-Française actor Denis Podalydès. Over the years, Michel Foucault, Colette, and Jean Cocteau have all passed through its doors.

But Librairie Delamain may now be coming to a close. This month, the Librairie Delamain’s lease is up for renewal by the Qatari company Constellation Hotel Holdings, which owns the block-wide property that also houses the soon-to-be-renovated Hôtel du Louvre. The company plans to double the bookstore's rent to 100,000 euros per year—nearly a tenth of their annual revenue. With already slim margins, the shop would be forced to shut down or abandon the storefront where it has been since 1906 (the business itself dates to 1700).
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