France honors last newspaper hawker in Paris with knighthood : NPR

PARIS — They call him the voice of Paris’ 6th arrondissement. In the cafés of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, Ali Akbar is a fixture — with a voice you can’t miss. You usually hear him before you see him, shouting “Ça y est!” — his signature catchphrase, “That’s it!”

For more than 50 years, the Pakistani-born newspaper hawker has made the same daily rounds on his secondhand bicycle, weaving between brasseries with fresh stacks of papers like Le Monde and Libération. His customers have ranged from neighborhood regulars to Left Bank intellectuals like the 20th century philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre and visiting presidents including Bill Clinton.

And last month, another of his old customers — French President Emmanuel Macron — awarded him one of France’s highest honors, naming Akbar a knight in the National Order of Merit.

“You are the accent of the 6th arrondissement,” Macron told Akbar in a formal ceremony at the Élysée Palace in late January. “The voice of the French press on Sunday mornings — and every other day of the week.”

Macron went on to refer to Akbar as “the most French of the French — a Voltairean who arrived from Pakistan.”

Akbar’s medal comes with a quiet footnote: He is believed to be the last newspaper hawker left in Paris. A job that once dotted street corners across the city has almost vanished, pushed out by the internet and the collapse of print journalism sales. In a city that now gets most of its headlines on phones, Akbar still delivers them by hand.

One big dream

At 73 years old, Akbar still works seven days a week, 10 hours a day — rain or shine.

Born in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, the oldest of 10 children, he says that growing up in poverty, he had one big dream — to make enough money to build his mom a house. Just before his 18th birthday, he left home, determined to make a better life abroad.

“I started to work hard,” he says.

For a while, he cleaned floors on a ship in Greece, picking up the Greek language. After that, he spent some time in the Netherlands and in the northern French city of Rouen.

When he wound up in Paris in 1973, an Argentinian friend suggested he start selling newspapers with him in the Latin Quarter. One of the first titles Akbar sold was a satirical weekly, which shocked him with its raunchy cartoons and irreverence toward French politicians.

“My first thought was: in my country, if you do that, they will kill you,” Akbar says.

He then added mainstream dailies, and grew to love the work of newspaper hawking, barely thinking twice about 18-hour days.

“Really, those days were paradise for me,” he says.

But that doesn’t mean things were easy. There were times when he was homeless, choosing to sleep on the streets to save money and send it back to his family.

“I was always thinking of my mother and her children,” he says.

Eventually he was able to fulfill his dream of building his mom her house. In the years since, he has continued earning a modest living selling papers. After an arranged marriage back in Pakistan, Akbar and his wife, Aziza, settled in a Paris suburb and raised five sons.

Akbar says he remains grateful to France for all the opportunity he has been given. But he is not afraid to acknowledge the hardships he has faced. The title of his 2005 memoir hints at what lies beneath the jubilant image that’s made him famous: I Make the World Laugh, but the World Makes Me Cry.

Even so, Akbar — like the Voltairean Macron described him as — chooses to focus on the positive. “You can meet bad people everywhere, and there are also good people everywhere,” he says, when asked about his struggles.

Cheers and congratulations wherever he goes

These days, Akbar can hardly go more than a few minutes without a stranger stopping him in the street to congratulate him on his recent honor.

For his family, his medal is also about healing.

“It has put a bandage on old wounds,” says his son, Shamshad Akbar.

Akbar, who received his residency papers decades ago, says Macron has promised him French citizenship. The Élysee Palace wouldn’t comment when NPR asked about it.

People in the neighborhood say Akbar has given them something priceless — a chance for daily human connection.

“He’s interested in you, and then you’re interested in him,” says longtime customer Michel Mimran. “And this is very rare now in the big cities.”

These days, Akbar says he’s lucky to make about 60 euros — about $70 — a day selling papers.

And when someday he finally goes, the newspaper hawker trade in Paris will go with him.

But he has no intention of going anytime soon. On a recent Sunday afternoon, Akbar pushed open the door of a packed brasserie on the Boulevard Saint-Germain. Heads turned. From the back of the room, a small crowd started chanting his name. Then the rest of the place joined in.

“Ali, Ali!” the room sang in unison.

Akbar smiled, lifted his hands, holding papers, laughed — and then shouted in French and in English:

“Ça y est! I have realized my dream!”