Today, I spoke with the owner of the Nice newsstand that will close tomorrow. She was very discouraged and is taking retirement and will leave Nice after eight years here.
She said that they (I presume she and her husband) came 8 years ago (from having run a couple of food stores elsewhere in France) with the intention of staying for 4 years, but they have tried for 4 years to find a buyer for their store and got no one. No one in the local power structure, she said, offered to help in any way. That's why they are closing up.
I asked if it was because of all of the changes and challenges facing the periodicals that she sells, including many newspapers, that created this state of affairs. No, she said. It's becasue no one wants to work these long hours for little compensation. It's that simple, she told me.
She agreed that the community of people who rely on her shop will be sorely disappointed and the community will be hurt as a result. Many other newsstands have closed in the area relatively near by and she said most of them in Nice are for sale with no potential buyers.
This presents a different problem than I had expected, but the effect is the same - one (important) less place in the world where people can buy printed newspapers.
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