A new second-hand shop

The old shop of Mme Nicolas

for a long time now we have had a weekly lunch at La Petite Auberge, a simple but good restaurant in Cluny's high street. The restaurant is located next to a second-hand bookshop, Livres Anciens run by Mme Nicole Nicolas. Even though we only ever bought one small book in her shop, we got to know her.

Mme Nicolas in 2012 (photo Journal de Saône-et-loire)

She often ate at La Petite Auberge, and Bugundians being friendly and polite people, we were soon on "Bonjour" terms with her. End of April however we noticed that the shop window had been emptied, and a week later there was a little card on the door saying that Mme Nicolas had passed away. From the owner of La Petite Auberge we learned that Mme Nicolas had died after a very short illness.

the shop of Amaury Bonnetain

Until August this year the empty shop was a painful reminder that nothing in life is eternal. In August however a new card appeared in the shop window. A certain M. Amaury Bonnetain was going to reopen the shop in October, again as a second-hand bookshop. In October the shop window had al of a sudden some books in it, one of which was a standard work on Romanesque churches in the region.

Book on Romanesque churches

One of my friends was interested in that particular book. After some phone calls and an inspection of the book itself the deal was made very quickly. The new owner happened to be a very amiable person, and we have left him in charge of some book titles of books that are new no longer available.

The Arab market in Chalon-sur-Saône

The Arab market - Chalon

Every Thursday morning Chalon-sur-Saône hosts a very cosy and busy market, known by the locals as the Arab market. The market is located in a quarter where the population is originally from North-African or Arabic descent. That is also the reason why the market is more colourful and aromatic (due to the many different sorts of ground spices) than the average "normal" markets with predominantly French buyers and sellers.

The Arab market - Chalon

When some years back French politicians started to compete each other by imitating Marine Le Pen in an attempt to cajole part of her voters out of her supporters, Mayor Gilles Platret was one of the politicians of Les Républicains (the right wing party of a.o. Sarkozy) who announced taking "measures". One of his spearheads was stopping providing halal meals for school lunches.

The Arab market - Chalon

That is still challenged by the supporters of halal food, and every so often Platret is summoned again for another appeal case concerning this item (end October a court of appeal in Lyon decided that Platret's decision had te be withdrawn). More recently he ordered the police to do street checks around the Arab market, no doubt in search of potential terrorists. These actions however were not very successful. If they had caught only one person Platret would have made a big show out of it.

The Arab market - Chalon

However, after the police checks in the area we thought that that might have had a negative effect on the market, but that turned out not to have been the case.
Recently we went there again, not necessarily to buy something (although we did), but just to taste the atmosphere. The market is still what it used to be: a cosy day market, where lots of colourful clothing is sold, where people are friendly, where the vegetable stalls sell more exotic stuff than the supermarkets, and where there is a constant smell of freshly ground spices and herbs, which we recognise from markets in the Middle-East and Asia.

The Arab market - Chalon