During our visit this month to Paris, we touched base with Ali Akbar, the only remaining newspaper hawker in Paris, to catch up on the 74-year-old’s activities since our sojourn in the city last year. Of supreme importance, in January this year, French President Emmanuel Macron bestowed on him the National Order of Merit, one of France’s highest civilian honors, for his contribution to French culture
A Chat in Paris with Newly Knighted Newspaper Hawker Ali Akbar
By Elaine Pasquini
Photos by Phil Pasquini
Paris: “April in Paris” is not just an iconic classic jazz tune composed by Vernon Duke and made famous by Ella Fitzgerald, it’s a truly spectacular time to be in the City of Light. Longer, warmer days see cherry trees and tulips in bloom, along with Parisiens seeking their favorite sidewalk café tables.
During our visit this month to Paris, we touched base with Ali Akbar, the only remaining newspaper hawker in Paris, to catch up on the 74-year-old’s activities since our sojourn in the city last year.
Of supreme importance, in January this year, French President Emmanuel Macron bestowed on him the National Order of Merit, one of France’s highest civilian honors, for his contribution to French culture. Chatting with Ali at the famed Les Deux Magots café, I asked him: “What do I call you now, Sir or Lord?” to which he exclaimed, “Chevalier!”
Ironically, Ali met the French president years ago when Macron was a student at Sciences Po. Fast forward 28 years and Ali and his family reunited with the president at the Élysée Palace for the special knighthood ceremony.
A sit-down chat with the beloved icon of the sixth arrondissement is always interrupted by his many fans who appreciate Ali’s approachability and friendly demeanor as he dispenses the latest news of the day in his ever-clever manner.
His daily beat from around 1 pm when he picks up Le Figaro and Le Monde newspapers for delivery until 11 pm when he returns home is the Left Bank haunts of Café de Flore, Les Deux Magots, Le Pré aux Clercs and others in the St-Germain-des-Prés neighborhood. These are our haunts, too, as my husband and I have made annual visits beginning in 1982. While obviously the charming quarter has changed, actually – thankfully – not much.
Ali, the father of five children – the youngest being 31, and grandfather of three, expressed pride at his children’s success, and gratitude for the life he made in France since arriving in 1973. He reminisced on his life in Rawalpindi where his family lived in a cave. Eventually escaping from his life of poverty and settling in Paris, he’s been able to send money back home to his parents and seven siblings. And now, every August, he said, he still returns to Pakistan for a visit.
When I asked him when he would retire, he smiled and responded: “When I’m in the cemetery.”
A Sunni Muslim, Ali spoke of loving people of all faiths and recounted a visit of a Jewish friend to Pakistan and the warmth with which he was received.
With the world in turmoil and as a fragile ceasefire in the US-Israeli war on Iran hangs by a thread, to spend time with a beloved friend is indeed a memory my husband and I will treasure.
(Elaine Pasquini is a freelance journalist. Her reports appear in the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs and Nuze.Ink.)
