He is France’s last newspaper hawker; maybe the last in Europe.
Ali Akbar has been pounding the pavement of Paris’s Left Bank for more than 50 years, papers under the arm and on his lips the latest headline.
And now he is to be officially recognised for his contribution to French culture. President Emmanuel Macron – who once as a student himself bought newspapers from Mr Akbar – is to decorate him next month with the Order of Merit, one of France’s highest honours.
“When I began here in 1973 there were 35 or 40 of us hawkers in Paris,” he says. “Now I am alone.
“It became too discouraging. Everything is digital now. People just want to consult their telephones.”
These days, on his rounds via the cafés of fashionable Saint-Germain, Mr Akbar can hope to sell around 30 copies of Le Monde. He keeps half the sale price, but gets no refund for returns.
Back before the Internet, he would sell 80 copies within the first hour of the newspaper’s afternoon publication.
“In the old days people would crowd around me looking for the paper. Now I have to chase down clients to try to sell one,” he says.