The situation of Parisian newsstand vendors is uneven. It is a question of neighborhood, atmosphere, and sometimes insecurity. There is also weariness when working conditions become too problematic. This leaves entire areas without their shops and residents forced to travel hundreds of meters to buy their favorite newspapers. Let’s focus on a dense, heavily populated sector between the 10th and 18th arrondissements.
Today, between Barbès and Stalingrad, newspaper vendors are absent. Or almost. The first one to leave the area, at the foot of the Barbès-Rochechouart metro station in the 18th arrondissement, was Samir Lebcher. He was, however, the heir of a dynasty of newsstand vendors. A family that had been present for forty-two years. Until that day in May 2019.
Following in the footsteps of his father Michel, known as the mayor of Barbès and an essential figure in the neighborhood, Samir did his best. He acted as a peacemaker among the youth, whom he knew so well. But he became the victim of an assault while closing his shop and never returned.
“I couldn’t bear it,” he explained at the time on his social media, posting a picture of his swollen face. Despite the pleas from politicians of all stripes and his friends in the neighborhood, Samir remained silent. As closed off as the metal shutters of his newsstand.
His iconic kiosk, which had been inaugurated by the Paris elite, has been despairingly closed for four years now. It is now nothing more than an advertising billboard and will soon be transferred to the 9th arrondissement, according to JCDecaux. “A clear failure,” laments a resident from La Chapelle, who was a long-time customer of the newsstand.
Not far away, at Place de la Chapelle, everyone remembers Uttam Karmoker. The man, full of good intentions, took over a newspaper kiosk with the hope of revitalizing a struggling neighborhood. Moved several times due to construction and then vandalized, the kiosk did not survive.
Today, there is only one newsstand left in the area, on Rue Louis-Blanc. “It’s catastrophic,” confides a resident. “For buying newspapers, there is only him, or the Relay H, which is still standing at Gare du Nord.”
The assault and departure of Uttam, whose shop was highly regarded in the neighborhood, were experienced as a true tragedy. This small shop, vanished in a hail of shattered glass, left the neighborhood devastated, desperate to see this merchant “harmed by the delinquent system that controls the sector.”
