The COVID-19 pandemic took a toll on businesses, industries and pretty much everything else across the world. While some managed to survive, others could not make it through the battle. In a saddening news for all book lovers, the iconic French bookstore Gibert Jeune will be closing its flagship store in the Latin Quarter this March. By Kumar Shree
As much as Paris is known for its romantic composition and gastronomic excellence, the city of love also has great literary inclinations. The home of the Eiffel Tower is dotted with popular bookstores, some of which have been serving readers for centuries. Sadly though, a number of these stores could not survive the brunt of the Coronavirus. Gibert Jeune, a landmark bookstore in the Latin Quarter, has decided to join this farewell list.
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Gibert Jeune is one of Paris’ prominent bookstores. The family-owned business was set up in 1886, and has been dealing in new and second-hand books ever since. You can scale Gibert Jeune’s popularity from the fact that it attracted long queues of students before the beginning of every academic year, until recently when COVID-19 threw all orders away.
The pandemic made a significant dent in the shop’s sales—which has dropped by 60 per cent—forcing the six-floored store to shut down. However, Gibert Jeune is not the only store to trod this ill-fated path. Boulinier, which is another popular bookstore in Paris, decided to its close doors some time ago. Many other bouquinistes in the region are also struggling to survive during these testing times.
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As reported by The Guardian, Rodolphe Bazin de Caix, marketing manager of Gibert Jeune, said, “COVID arrived, and suddenly there were no more tourists and no more students… We’re talking about a bookshop whose DNA is 80 per cent textbooks, many of them second-hand. This shop was impacted much more than the others.”
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