{"id":113184,"date":"2025-10-02T19:17:20","date_gmt":"2025-10-02T14:17:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/?p=113184"},"modified":"2025-10-02T19:17:20","modified_gmt":"2025-10-02T14:17:20","slug":"meet-ali-akbar-the-last-newspaper-hawker-in-paris","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/2025\/113184\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet Ali Akbar, the last newspaper hawker in Paris"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Paris(National times)- Ali Akbar knows everyone, and everyone knows him. The last newspaper hawker in Paris zigzags each day from cafe to cafe, shouting humorous headlines in the heart of the French capital. &#8220;France is getting better!&#8221; he cries, just one of the headlines he invents to sell his wares around the upmarket streets of Saint-German-des-Pres. &#8220;(Eric) Zemmour has converted to Islam!&#8221; he shouts, referring to the far-right candidate in the 2022 presidential elections. Locals and tourists on the Left Bank, the intellectual and cultural heart of Paris, look on amused. &#8220;Even the walls could talk about Ali,&#8221; smiled Amina Qissi, a waitress at a restaurant opposite the Marche Saint-Germain, who has known Akbar for more than 20 years. Now 73, Akbar, a slim, fine-featured &#8220;character&#8221; with newspapers tucked under his arm, is a neighbourhood legend, she added. &#8220;Even regular tourists ask where he is if they don\u2019t see him,&#8221; she told\u00a0<em>AFP<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Hard life&nbsp;<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>French President Emmanuel Macron has vowed to soon make Akbar a knight in the national order of merit in recognition of his &#8220;dedicated service to France&#8221;. &#8220;At first, I didn\u2019t believe it. Friends must have asked him (Macron) or maybe he decided on his own. We often crossed paths when he was a student,&#8221; said Akbar. &#8220;I believe it\u2019s related to my courage, because I\u2019ve worked hard,&#8221; he added. Akbar, who wears round spectacles, a blue work jacket and a Gavroche cap, mainly sells copies of the French daily Le Monde. When he arrived in France at the age of 20, hoping to escape poverty and send back money to his family in Pakistan, he worked as a sailor, then a dishwasher in a restaurant in the northern city of Rouen. Then in Paris, he bumped into Georges Bernier, the humourist also known as Professeur Choron, who gave him the chance to sell his satirical newspapers Hara-Kiri and Charlie Hebdo. Akbar has been homeless, experienced extreme poverty and had even been attacked\u2014but despite the hardships, he said he has never given up. &#8220;Emmanuel Macron is going to put a bit of antiseptic on my wounds,&#8221; he told his son Shahab, who at 30 is the youngest of his five children. Shahab, who describes himself as &#8220;very proud&#8221; of his father, enjoys cataloguing the numerous profiles dedicated to his father in the foreign press. When he started out as a hawker in the 1970s, Akbar focused on the Left Bank of the river Seine, which was a university area &#8220;where you could eat cheaply&#8221;, he said. On the rue Saint-Guillaume in front of the prestigious Sciences Po university, he recalled learning French from interactions with students like former prime minister Edouard Philippe and &#8220;many others who became ministers or lawmakers&#8221;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">\u2018A good mood\u2019&nbsp;<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Paris used to have about 40 newspaper hawkers\u2014street vendors without a fixed newsstand\u2014 who were posted at strategic locations such as the entrances to metro stations. Akbar stood out by choosing to walk around, selecting the Latin Quarter. In the 1980s, he started inventing sensational headlines. &#8220;I want people to live happily. I do it to create a good mood, that\u2019s all,&#8221; he said.\\ But he admitted that he is finding it increasingly difficult to come up with good jokes. &#8220;Everything is such a mess,&#8221; he added. Akbar, who receives a pension of 1,000 euros ($1,175) a month, still works from 3 pm until 10 pm each day.\\ When\u00a0<em>AFP<\/em>\u00a0met him on a recent afternoon, clients were few and far between. On average, he sells about 30 newspapers every day, compared to between 150 and 200 when he started. &#8220;As long as I\u2019ve got the energy, I\u2019ll keep going. I\u2019ll work until I die,&#8221; he joked. On the terrace of one cafe, Amel Ghali, 36, said Akbar was &#8220;inspiring&#8221;. &#8220;It\u2019s good to see it in the digital age,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Unfortunately, our children won\u2019t experience the pleasure of reading a newspaper with a coffee.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Paris(National times)- Ali Akbar knows everyone, and everyone knows him. The last newspaper hawker in Paris zigzags each day from cafe to cafe, shouting humorous headlines in the heart of the French capital. &#8220;France is getting better!&#8221; he cries, just one of the headlines he invents to sell his wares around the upmarket streets of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":113185,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-113184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international","entry"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Meet Ali Akbar, the last newspaper hawker in Paris - Nation<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/2025\/113184\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Meet Ali Akbar, the last newspaper hawker in Paris - Nation\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Paris(National times)- Ali Akbar knows everyone, and everyone knows him. The last newspaper hawker in Paris zigzags each day from cafe to cafe, shouting humorous headlines in the heart of the French capital. &#8220;France is getting better!&#8221; he cries, just one of the headlines he invents to sell his wares around the upmarket streets of [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/2025\/113184\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Nation\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-10-02T14:17:20+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/image-670x370-2025-10-02T191651.666.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"670\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"370\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"humza Jahangir\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"humza Jahangir\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/2025\/113184\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/2025\/113184\/\",\"name\":\"Meet Ali Akbar, the last newspaper hawker in Paris - Nation\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/2025\/113184\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/2025\/113184\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/image-670x370-2025-10-02T191651.666.png\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-10-02T14:17:20+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/#\/schema\/person\/27efa35fa76e99f3ad7e7397d7332c16\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/2025\/113184\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/2025\/113184\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/2025\/113184\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/image-670x370-2025-10-02T191651.666.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/image-670x370-2025-10-02T191651.666.png\",\"width\":670,\"height\":370},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/2025\/113184\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Meet Ali Akbar, the last newspaper hawker in Paris\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/\",\"name\":\"Nation\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/#\/schema\/person\/27efa35fa76e99f3ad7e7397d7332c16\",\"name\":\"humza Jahangir\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/43feedd99bd6a90080d1621b7e6604364acb673ee979d3ffe5075557c14c68b9?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/43feedd99bd6a90080d1621b7e6604364acb673ee979d3ffe5075557c14c68b9?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"humza Jahangir\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/author\/humza\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Meet Ali Akbar, the last newspaper hawker in Paris - Nation","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/2025\/113184\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Meet Ali Akbar, the last newspaper hawker in Paris - Nation","og_description":"Paris(National times)- Ali Akbar knows everyone, and everyone knows him. 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