Hawker, the last newspaper of France, gets merit after 50 years

Hug shoffield

Paris correspondent

Now 72 -year -old Ali Akbar has spent 50 years to sell newspapers in the left bank.

BBC Ali Akbar has placed a copy of Monde in front of a cafe in Central Paris — Now 72 -year -old Ali Akbar has spent 50 years to sell newspapers in the left bank.

He is France’s last newspaper Hawker; Perhaps the last in Europe.

Ali Akbar has been pounds for more than 50 years for the latest title on the Pavements of the left bank, papers under the hand, and the latest title on his lips.

And now he is officially recognized for his contribution to the French culture. President Emmanuel Macron – who once bought a newspaper from Mr. Akbar as a student himself – is to decorate him with an order of merit, one of the highest honors of France next month.

“When I started here in 1973, there were 35 or 40 hawkers in Paris,” he says. “Now I am alone.

“It has become very discouraged. Now everything is digital. People only want to consult their telephone.”

These days, through the cafe of fashionable St.-Germen, Mr. Akbar can expect to sell about 30 copies of Le Monde. He keeps the sale price half, but there is no return to the return.

Before the Internet, he will sell 80 copies within the first hour of the newspaper’s afternoon publication.

“In the old days people used to crowd around me in search of paper. Now I have to chase customers to try to sell one,” they say.

Mr. Akbar (right) now sells very few papers compared to the days made in the days before the Internet.

Reuters Ali Akbar, in a gray flat cap and black shirt, a copy of Le Monde sells an elderly man in glasses and a blue shirt on the streets of Paris — Mr. Akbar (right) now sells very few papers compared to the days made in the days before the Internet.

It is not that the decline in business bothers Mr. Akbar from a distance, which says that he is going for the sheer joy of the job.

“I am a joyful person. And I am independent. With this job, I am completely independent. I have no orders. So I do so.”

72 -year -old, an acquaintance and very loving person in the neighborhood. “I first came here in the 1960s and I grew up with Ali. He is like a brother,” says a woman.

“He knows everyone. And he is so funny,” says another.

Ali Akbar was born in Rawalpindi and made his way to Europe in the late 1960s, first reached Amsterdam, where he was worked on a cruise liner. In 1972, the ship was docked in the French city of Rouna, and a year later he was in Paris. He received his residency paper in the 1980s.

72 -year -old, well known and loves well in the neighborhood

Reuters Ali Akbar, wearing a gray flat cap and a black shirt, stands with a paper held in his right hand in front of Cafe Day Floor in Paris — 72 -year -old, well known and loves well in the neighborhood

“I, I was not a hippie back then, but I knew a lot of hippies,” he says with his specific laughter.

“When I was in Afghanistan on the way to Europe, I landed with a group that tried to smoke me.

“I told him sorry, but I had a mission in life, and it was not to spend sleeping in Kabul the following month!”

He met famous celebrities and writers in St.-Germen’s once intellectual hub. Elton John once bought Milky Tea in Brasari Lips. And by selling papers in front of the prestigious science-po University, he was familiar with the generations of future politicians-like President Macron.

So how the legendary left bank has turned into a neighborhood because it first holds a copy of Le Monde and has blown it. A la kree (With a shout)?

“The atmosphere is not the same,” he lames. “He was back everywhere was a publisher and writer-and actor and musician. This place had a soul. But now it is just a tourist-city.

“The soul is gone,” he says – but he laughs as he does.