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Why the small bookshop survives
France has far more independent bookshops than comparable countries, and the reason is a law. The loi Lang of 1981 fixed the price of a book: the publisher sets it, and no retailer may discount by more than five percent. That removed price as a weapon and stopped supermarkets, and later online sellers, from underselling the neighborhood shop out of existence; a later law closed the free-delivery loophole. The policy is openly protective, defended across the political spectrum, and argued for as cultural rather than commercial — which is also why a librairie is a normal business to want to open.