France’s last newspaper hawker gets Order of Merit after 50 years

France’s last newspaper Hawker; Maybe the last of Europe.

Ali Akbar has been hitting the pavement of the left bank of Paris for more than 50 years, under the arm and last title on his lips.

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

“When I started here in 1973, we were 35 or 40 in Paris, or he says. “I’m alone now.

“It was very courageous. Now everything is digital. People just want to consult their phones.”

In these days, Mr. Akbar may hope to sell about 30 copies of Monde in his tours through fashion Saint-Germain cafes. Protects half of the sales price, but does not receive a refund for the return.

Before the internet, he would sell 80 copies in the first hour of the newspaper in the afternoon.

“In the old days, people would be crowded around me looking for paper. Now I have to chase customers to try to sell one,” he says.

It is not because Mr. Akbar said that the decline in trade continues from a distance.

“I’m a cheerful person. And I’m free. I’m completely independent with this business. There’s no one who doesn’t give me orders.

72 years old, familiar and popular figure in the neighborhood. “I first came here in the 1960s and grew up with Ali. She’s like a brother,” a woman says.

“He knows everyone. And he’s a lot of fun, or the other says.

Ali Akbar was born in Rawalpindi and went to Europe in the late 1960s and first came to Amsterdam, where he worked on a cruise ship. In 1972, the ship entered the French city of Rouen and a year later in Paris. In the 1980s, he received residence documents.

“I wasn’t hippie back then, but I knew too much hippie, or he says with his characteristic smile.

“When I was in Afghanistan on his way to Europe, I went down to a group trying to drink poppy.

“I apologize to them, but I had a duty in life, and the next month wasn’t to spend to sleep in Kabul!”

He once met celebrities and writers in the intellectual center of Saint-Germain. Elton John once bought milk tea in Brasserie Lipp. And by selling articles in front of the prestigious sciences-Pone University, he met future politicians such as President Macron.

So how has it changed since the first time and whipping a copy of Le Monde by the legendary left bank neighborhood? à la criée (with a shout)?

“The atmosphere is not the same,” he complains. “There were publishers and writers and actors and musicians everywhere at that time. There was the spirit of the earth. But now only the town of tourist.

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