Amazon has withdrawn from the Paris Book Festival "following the decision by the French booksellers' association (Syndicat de la Librairie Française, SLF) to boycott the event in protest over the festival's partnership with the American giant," the Bookseller reported.
The festival is scheduled for April 17-19. The organizers, Paris Livres Evénements, a subsidiary of the French publishers association (Syndicat National de l'Edition, SNE), confirmed the partnership was over thanks to the "hostility to Amazon's presence as a sponsor."
"We are deeply disappointed by this partisan manoeuvre by the SLF," an Amazon spokesperson said. "Building on ungrounded and misleading claims, [it] hijacks the event for its own benefit and diverts it from its legitimate ambition--namely the celebration of reading, readers and authors."
The SLF said it was " 'delighted' booksellers' concerns have been heard and that the best interests of books and their ecosystem have prevailed," and thanked the festival's organizers and the SNE "for their clear and rapid response."
When the SLF announced its decision earlier this week, it stated that Amazon "is not a friend of books" and "destabilizes the book ecosystem," seeking "to flood the market with fake AI-generated books, [which are] promoted by fake reviews, written by fake readers [and rise] to the top of fake rankings." The organization called for booksellers, other book professionals, and readers "sensitive to preserving books and their economic model" to boycott the festival.
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The Booksellers Association Group, comprising the Booksellers Association of the U.K. & Ireland, National Book Tokens, and Batch, will invest £200,000 (about $265,000) to support bookshops during the National Year of Reading. The Bookseller reported that the BA Group's initiative includes offering grants for £250 (about $330) and £500 (about $665)--totaling £25,000 (about $33,280)--to bookshops for projects that support the aims of the initiative.
The BA said that the funding is "deliberately flexible, enabling booksellers to develop initiatives that make reading social, personally meaningful and modern--whether through new event formats, school partnerships, outreach work, inclusive programming, digital engagement or creative collaborations rooted in their communities."
Speaking on behalf of National Book Tokens managing director Alex de Berry and Batch MD Izzy Carlile, Meryl Halls, BA's MD, said "Our £200,000 commitment is about giving bookshops practical funding, tools and visibility to extend their reach and deepen their impact. As a group, we celebrate bookshops to consumers, advocate for them to government and the trade, and support them with the infrastructure they need to succeed. By working together across our three companies, we can further support bookshops [in] keeping reading social, relevant and accessible, as vital reading for pleasure engines at the heart of communities."
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Violette & Co., a feminist, lesbian, LGBTQIA+ bookshop in Paris, France, was searched by police looking to confiscate a children's coloring book titled From the River to the Sea by Nathi Ngubane and Azad Essa. The European & International Booksellers Federation's Newsflash reported that the book "was censored in January by the Commission de surveillance et de contrôle des publications pour la jeunesse (French Commission of Surveillance and Control of Publications for Youth). For 45 minutes, armed policemen inspected shelves, opened one by one boxes of books, and searched reserves and the break room. However, policemen didn't find any copy of the book in question."