The Traditional Right lives on, even in France!
From The European Conservative
On Thursday, 1 August, the small but well-stocked Parisian bookstore, La Nouvelle Librairie,
celebrated its one-year anniversary. With friends, supporters, and
clients stopping by for the celebration, the decidedly right-wing
bookstore demonstrated that there is indeed a growing demand for the
books, periodicals, and other materials that it makes available for
purchase.
There is, it seems, an alternative to the cultural dominance of the French left — even in the Latin Quarter.
One might have thought that Paris already had enough bookstores to
satisfy the interests and tastes of any reader. But with the possible
exception of ‘Duquesne Diffusion’, a short walk from the Eiffel Tower,
conservatives, nationalists, traditionalists, and other right-wing
readers had very few places to go.
All that changed a year ago when enterprising François Bousquet — editor of the right-wing magazine, Éléments — opened ‘La Nouvelle Librairie’ in the heart of the Latin Quarter.
Since then, his modest but important contribution to the ‘political
literacy’ of Parisian readers has been well-received — but not by
everyone.
La Nouvelle Librairie was profiled in both the French weekly magazine, L’Express, and The Washington Post
(WaPo). But in neither did it receive praise for contributing to the
diversity of political thought. (The Washington-based news daily, in
fact, once again demonstrated its penchant for alarmist reporting —
backed up by typically sloppy research — by referring to Joseph de
Maistre as a “proto-fascist thinker”.)
Never mind what the “nattering nabobs of negativism” have to say. The
bookstore is a fine thing, making available a wide variety of books,
new and old, as well as monographs, periodicals, and CDs from across the
right. Upstairs, it shelves, tables, and bins are full of historic
materials. One can spend hours perusing the materials here. It is, as
Bousquet told WaPo, very much “a space of liberty and resistance”.
In addition to the dizzying variety of publications that are for
sale, also contributing to the bookstore’s success during its first year
have been regular events — book signings, book talks, and other evening gatherings — all held at the store.
Bousquet, however, sees this only as the start. He is planning a
series of new activities. According to a short news item yesterday at Paris Vox, among other initiatives, he is planning a return “to a tradition dear to the book trade” — that of bookstores also publishing books. To this end, La Nouvelle Librairie has already “acquired an editorial structure”.
More information about the new ‘Éditions de la Nouvelle Librairie’ shall be available after September.
In the meantime, we congratulate M. Bousquet for his entrepreneurship, foresight, and daring. And we extend to La Nouvelle Librairie a well-deserved bon anniversaire!
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