{"id":331933,"date":"2025-08-10T01:26:13","date_gmt":"2025-08-10T01:26:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/331933\/"},"modified":"2025-08-10T01:26:13","modified_gmt":"2025-08-10T01:26:13","slug":"frances-last-newspaper-hawker-gets-order-of-merit-after-50-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/331933\/","title":{"rendered":"France’s last newspaper hawker gets Order of Merit after 50 years"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hugh Schofield<\/p>\n

Paris correspondent<\/p>\n

\"BBCBBC<\/p>\n

Ali Akbar, now 72, has spent 50 years selling newspapers on the Left Bank<\/p>\n

He is France’s last newspaper hawker; maybe the last in Europe.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

And now he is to be officially recognised for his contribution to French culture. President Emmanuel Macron \u2013 who once as a student himself bought newspapers from Mr Akbar \u2013 is to decorate him next month with the Order of Merit, one of France’s highest honours.<\/p>\n

“When I began here in 1973 there were 35 or 40 of us hawkers in Paris,” he says. “Now I am alone.<\/p>\n

“It became too discouraging. Everything is digital now. People just want to consult their telephones.”<\/p>\n

These days, on his rounds via the caf\u00e9s 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.<\/p>\n

Back before the Internet, he would sell 80 copies within the first hour of the newspaper’s afternoon publication.<\/p>\n

“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.<\/p>\n

\"ReutersReuters<\/p>\n

Mr Akbar (right) now sells far fewer papers than he did in the days before the internet<\/p>\n

Not that the decline in trade remotely bothers Mr Akbar, who says he keeps going for the sheer joy of the job.<\/p>\n

“I am a joyous person. And I am free. With this job, I am completely independent. There is no-one giving me orders. That’s why I do it.”<\/p>\n

The sprightly 72-year-old is a familiar and much-loved figure in the neighbourhood. “I first came here in the 1960s and I’ve grown up with Ali. He is like a brother,” says one woman.<\/p>\n

“He knows everyone. And he is such fun,” says another.<\/p>\n

Ali Akbar was born in Rawalpindi and made his way to Europe in the late 1960s, arriving first at Amsterdam where he got work on board a cruise liner. In 1972 the ship docked in the French city of Rouen, and a year later he was in Paris. He got his residency papers in the 1980s.<\/p>\n

\"ReutersReuters<\/p>\n

The 72-year-old is well-known and well-loved in the neighbourhood<\/p>\n

“Me, I wasn’t a hippy back then, but I knew a lot of hippies,” he says with his characteristic laugh.<\/p>\n

“When I was in Afghanistan on my way to Europe I landed up with a group who tried to make me smoke hashish.<\/p>\n

“I told them sorry, but I had a mission in life, and it wasn’t to spend the next month sleeping in Kabul!”<\/p>\n

In the once intellectual hub of Saint-Germain he got to meet celebrities and writers. Elton John once bought him milky tea at Brasserie Lipp. And selling papers in front of the prestigious Sciences-Po university, he was acquainted with generations of future politicians \u2013 like President Macron.<\/p>\n

So how has the legendary Left Bank neighbourhood changed since he first held aloft a copy of Le Monde and flogged it \u00e0 la cri\u00e9e (with a shout)?<\/p>\n

“The atmosphere isn’t the same,” he laments. “Back then there were publishers and writers everywhere \u2013 and actors and musicians. The place had soul. But now it is just tourist-town.<\/p>\n

“The soul has gone,” he says \u2013 but he laughs as he does.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hugh Schofield Paris correspondent BBC Ali Akbar, now 72, has spent 50 years selling newspapers on the Left…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":331934,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5309],"tags":[2000,299,36],"class_list":{"0":"post-331933","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-france","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-france"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115001870946426823","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331933","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=331933"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331933\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/331934"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=331933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=331933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=331933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}