Driven by the good health of the book market, 142 new stores opened in France in 2022, compared to 140 the previous year.
In 2022, the number of bookstore openings has never been so high in France. Driven by the good health of the book market, 142 new shops opened in France, compared to 140 the previous year. A “record level” according to the National Book Center (CNL), a public institution supporting the sector.
Among them, the Liragif bookstore, launched in Gif-sur-Yvette by Hélène Pourquiée, already owner of another store. According to this bookseller, this phenomenon is explained by a desire for renewal and a return to proximity, in particular driven by the Covid crisis and the various confinements.
“It’s a very nice job so I understand that it’s appealing. We want a close job, contact with people and literature. A bookstore is a whole world”, she says at BFMTV.
Nearly fifty projects already underway in 2023
As indicated by the National Book Center, the pace of bookstore creations has accelerated sharply compared to the end of the 2010s, when the establishment counted 60 to 80 per year.
These establishments have multiplied more in rural and coastal areas, where this type of trade did not yet exist, but also in the peripheral municipalities of dynamic metropolises (Bordeaux, Marseilles, Nantes, Rennes) or towns and cities of average size. .
“One in two bookstores opened since 2017 has been in a municipality of less than 15,000 inhabitants and one in four of less than 5,000 inhabitants, in an approach often claimed to be a local service”, according to the CNL.
A risky bet at a time when technology threatens the paper book but the sector is doing well, as evidenced by the fifty or so projects to open bookstores already identified by the National Book Center for 2023.