Question 16988 — press and books

Summary

Ms. Anne-Cécile Violland draws the attention of the Minister of Culture to the alarming situation experienced by the network of French independent bookstores, whose continued weakening threatens an essential part of the cultural, economic and democratic life of the country. The 2025 report published by the National Book Center (CNL) is clear. For the first time since the creation of this observatory, the balance between openings and closings of bookstores became negative. 83 bookstores opened their doors in 2025, compared to 85 which closed permanently, this is a brutal reversal compared to 2024, when there were still 129 openings for 72 closures. This shift takes place in a context of continued decline in sales: - 2.9% in value and - 3.3% in volume over the first four months of 2026 compared to the same period of 2025 and a marked drop of 6% in first quarter of 2026, according to the French Bookstore Union Observatory. These closures mainly affect recent structures (created over the last ten years), often small, whose turnover is less than 200,000 euros and whose managers receive a net remuneration of less than 5,000 euros per year. The CNL identifies two charges which are strangling the sector today: commercial rents and the wage bill, the latter having mechanically increased for three years under the effect of increases in the minimum wage, without the commercial margin being able to absorb this shock. What should be even more alarming is that the crisis is no longer limited to small structures since it is now affecting historic brands. The Gibert group, a book institution, was placed in receivership in April 2026, for a six-month observation period. Its turnover increased from 92 million euros in 2024 to 86 million euros in 2025 and around 500 employees spread across sixteen stores are now in limbo. Other major players, such as the Nosoli group, have also experienced significant financial difficulties in recent months. Only brands of this size, with a financial base that is much more important than that of a city center bookstore, find themselves weakened to this point, testifies to a structural problem of the sector and not to isolated difficulties. This erosion of the bookstore network poses serious risks on several levels. On an economic and social level, thousands of qualified jobs, which cannot be relocated, are threatened in a network which has around 3,300 independent bookstores and employs more than of 15,000 people across the book sector in the broad sense. In terms of regional planning, closures primarily affect small towns and rural areas, where bookstores are often one of the last local cultural businesses, with a knock-on effect on the vitality of city centers. In terms of cultural dissemination: independent bookstores play a role of prescription and irreplaceable cultural diffusion, guaranteeing the promotion of editorial diversity in the face of the standardization of the offer and the concentration of sales on a few bestsellers imposed by the major platforms. Finally, from a democratic point of view, the disappearance of these places of mediation and access to reading weakens the fight against the standardization of content and access to plural thought, even though time devoted to reading recedes. The MP measures the efforts already made by the State in favor of the sector, from the so-called “Darcos” law of 1981 to the “Culture and Rurality” plan launched in 2024. However, despite this framework, the balance number of openings/closures became negative for the first time in 2025 and the indicators for the first half of 2026 show no sign of improvement. This observation imposes a double conclusion: these systems must be strengthened and better equipped and new tools must be considered to respond to the emergency, for example the question of fixed charges which today weigh most heavily on the balance of bookstores and on the rebalancing of competition with digital platforms. In view of these elements, she asks him in what way the Government will be able to support and ensure the sustainability of the activity of bookstores and preserve their essential activity.

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