A FEW YEARS AGO, while researching a dissertation on the French author Henri Barbusse, I spent weeks on a fruitless search for a book that was published by Flammarion in the 1930s, never earned a re-print and quickly disappeared from circulation. I tried some of the best specialist booksellers in Paris – they all knew it well, but just hadn’t seen a copy in a while. I made do with the Bibliothèque Nationale’s copy until, one day, an antiquarian books website threw up a lead. It told me that a single edition of the title had turned up in a small bookshop in Batignolles, in the north-west corner of Paris.
So I left the archives early that afternoon and made my way to the address. From the outside, it was an unprepossessing little place, hidden away on a quiet residential street, and it was closed (“Opening hours: Saturday, 10am-3pm”, said a hand-written note on the door). Through the window, you could see the books piled high from every inch of floor-space, with a narrow path cut through the leaning towers leading towards the back. The elusive title wasn’t among them, the owner told me when I returned that weekend. There had been a mix-up; it hadn’t been in stock for weeks. But hold on, he said, picking up his phone, “I’ve a friend who might have it.” After a while, the friend showed up and said he’d bring me to “his place” a few blocks away.
I presumed he ran another shop until we found ourselves in his large living room, where three of the four high walls were covered in old books.
No, “old books” doesn’t quite do it justice. Even a quick glance was enough to see he had slowly, lovingly assembled an expert’s treasury of rare titles from the first World War and the interwar years. He was clearly a serious scholar or collector.
I’d only ever seen most of them in libraries, and he was clearly pleased to see someone recognise what he had. He handed me a copy of the one I was after and, when he noticed me flicking through another volume, said I could take that too. We talked for a while and said we’d keep in touch. Then he charged me €10, possibly because I may have looked like I couldn’t afford much more, and led me out to the street.
I remember thinking at the time that I had Jack Lang to thank for my chance encounter that Saturday morning. The Socialist politician was culture minister when, 30 years ago last month, the French government enacted a landmark law that regulated the publishing industry by forbidding the discounting of book prices by more than 5 per cent. Commonly known as the " loi Lang", the law was conceived during the discount wars of the 1970s as a means of supporting independent bookshops against the aggressive price-cutting of large retail chains. It broadly succeeded in its aim, as the survival of so many small bookshops in France suggests, and the legislation – untouched by every government since 1981 – is still regarded as a flagship of French cultural policy.
Today, the situation for small booksellers here is much healthier than in Ireland and many other countries. France has some 900 bookshops considered to be at the highest level of quality, and 3,874 shops at the second level, and those numbers are relatively stable. By contrast, as the writer André Schiffrin noted in his recent book Words and Money, Manhattan – which had 333 bookshops in 1945 – now has around 30, including the chains.
France's independent bookshops have been relatively insulated from market pressures not only because of the " loi Lang" but thanks to a culture that values independent publishing and is not afraid to assert its importance. In order to preserve the cultural and intellectual character of the Latin Quarter, for example, the City of Paris offers a number of commercial units to bookshops or publishers at half the rent that would normally be charged in the area. Regional authorities across France have their own schemes. As a result of such help, small publishers are also faring better in France than elsewhere. Recently, while preparing an essay, I went looking for a copy of L'An 2440 (The Year 2440), published in 1771 by Louis-Sébastien Mercier. I picked it up in my local shop after a quick online search revealed it had been re-issued in 2009 by a small publishing house, with the support of the regional government.
Books retain a status and relevance here that has dimmed in some countries. The past few weeks have offered ample proof of that, with the airwaves and print columns filled with coverage of la rentrée littéraire, the autumn publishing season, during which 654 French titles have hit the shelves just in time to meet awards deadlines.
And yet, for all the industry's resilience, the " loi Lang" hasn't bought it immunity from wider trends. A recent study co-produced by the culture ministry found that independent bookshops' turnover fell by 5.4 per cent between 2003 and 2010, mainly due to pressure from big chains and the internet. Thirty years ago, the independents accounted for 40 per cent of the industry's turnover. Today the proportion is 25 per cent.
So concerned is the state by the threat to bookshops from the internet that last May, the parliament enacted – with one vote short of unanimity – a new law to ban discounting of e-books online. E-books account for only one per cent of book sales in France and the new law may well be challenged in the European courts, but the adoption of a " loi Lang" for the digital age drew huge acclaim as evidence that the French cultural exception lives on.
It has also given new life to the debate about how to balance the exciting potential of new technology with the desire to preserve cultural patrimony and keep a place for the humble librairie, as a physical space for learning and cultural exchange, in the heart of towns and cities.
I bet that bookseller in Batignolles has something good on all of this. And if not, he probably knows someone who does.