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France is experiencing a “record level” of bookstore openings driven by the sale of printed works, according to a report published Monday. With a balance of 115 additional stores, many bookstores arise in cities where there was no such business.
2022 was a good year for bookstores in France, according to a report published this Monday by the National Book Center (CNL).
This public institution that supports the sector recorded the opening of 142 new bookstores, compared to 140 the previous year. The net balance is 115 additional bookstores, compared to 112 in 2021.
The pace of opening new bookstores has accelerated sharply compared to the late 2010s, when the CNL was counting between 60 and 80 a year.
The opening of new bookstores, driven by the good health of the book market, reached a “record level” in France in 2022, indicates this source.
The location of these new bookstores is felt above all in the western and southern areas of France and corresponds to the attraction of the French to live in “certain rural and coastal areas”, although bookstores are also installed “on the periphery of dynamic cities or of medium size”, explains the CNL.
Many new booksellers choose cities that lacked this type of business.
“One in two bookstores opened since 2017 was in a city with less than 15,000 inhabitants and one in four with less than 5,000 inhabitants,” according to the CNL.