Bouquinistes

[2] The term "boucquain", which derived from the Flemish boeckijn ("little book"), appeared in 1459 and is recorded as "bouquin" towards the end of the 16th century.

During the 1970s, the bouquinistes felt threatened by the construction of the Voie Express Rive Gauche on the bank of the Seine.

By then, Parisians' interest for literature decreased (as TV and radio increased in demand), leading to a decline in the quality of the antiques distributed by the bouquinistes.

[6] Installed along more than three kilometers of the Seine and declared a UNESCO World Heritage site, the 240 bouquinistes make use of 900 "green boxes" to house some 300,000 old books and a very great number of journals, stamps and trading cards.

[7] Article 9 of the by-law of October 1993, signed by Jacques Chirac:[citation needed] The boxes used by book stores will be of a type approved by the Administration with an external bodywork determined by the dimensions below, for a maximum length of 8.6 metres:

Bouquinistes stall in 2007
Engraving by Jean Henry Marlet after Adrien Victor Auger , Bouquiniste quai Voltaire 1821
Vintage postcard of Paris. Motive: " Eiffel Tower stool" on the bouquinistes banks of the Seine in Paris, 1973
A bookseller closes his stall for the day