{"id":1300,"date":"2025-08-11T09:08:29","date_gmt":"2025-08-11T09:08:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/?p=1300"},"modified":"2025-08-11T09:08:29","modified_gmt":"2025-08-11T09:08:29","slug":"frances-last-newspaper-hawker-gets-order-of-merit-from-his-old-customer-president-macron","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/?p=1300","title":{"rendered":"France’s last newspaper hawker gets Order of Merit from his old customer – President Macron"},"content":{"rendered":"
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<\/h1>\n<\/div>\n
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Hugh Schofield<\/span><\/p>\n
Paris correspondent<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\"\"BBC<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Ali Akbar, now 72, has spent 50 years selling newspapers on the Left Bank<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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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<\/div>\n

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\"\"Reuters<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Mr Akbar (right) now sells far fewer papers than he did in the days before the internet<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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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, Pakistan, and made his way to Europe in the late 1960s, arriving first in Amsterdam where he got work on board a cruise liner.<\/p>\n

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<\/div>\n

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\"\"Reuters<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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The 72-year-old is well-known and well-loved in the neighbourhood<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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“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\u00a0\u00e0 la cri\u00e9e<\/i>\u00a0(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<\/div>\n

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Hugh Schofield Paris correspondent BBC Ali Akbar, now 72, has spent 50 years selling newspapers on the Left<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-france"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1300"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1300\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1304,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1300\/revisions\/1304"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}