Today I was paying for some books at a bookstore and grumbled as I pulled out my 5 % discount card. "It should be ten percent!"
I thought they were just being cheap.
"Why should it?" countered the cashier.
"Well, all the other store discount cards are ten percent."
"But it's illegal to discount books more than five percent."
The other cashier nodded approvingly. "Since Jack Lang."
"The former Culture Minister?" I said. (You know, the one who gave Sylvester Stallone the medal of Arts and Letters.)
"It's to protect writers. Jack Lang made the point that books must not be treated as just another commercial item. So other stores are allowed to offer a ten percent discount, but bookstores cannot discount more than five percent."
Considering that most writers are considered freelancers who must pay their own social security taxes, get no unemployment benefits between books and oftentimes have contracts that are grossly in favor of the publishers (so bad I considered a writer friend criminally stupid until I was told this was standard practice in France); I cannot disagree with Lang's move here.
I suggest you be a little miffed at the overindulged actors and actresses instead.
From Sedulia: Actually I have not made up my mind yet. When I thought it was just the individual bookstore being cheap, I didn't like it. But on the whole, I admire France's concern for culture.
Posted by: The Gay Expat | 12 November 2006 at 10:19