Extra! Extra! Paris news hawker Ali Akbar set for knighthood

ALI Akbar knows everyone and everyone knows him: the last newspaper hawker in Paris, he zigzags each day from café to café, shouting humorous headlines in the heart of the French capital.

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PAKISTANI-BORN Ali Akbar, 73, sells newspapers in Paris's Latin Quarter on September 16. The city's last remaining news vendor, he is set to be knighted in France's National Order of Merit by the President. | AFP

(AFP)

"France is getting better!" he cries, just one of the headlines he invents to sell his wares round the upmarket streets of Saint-German-des-Prés.

"(Eric) Zemmour has converted to Islam!" he shouts, referring to the farright candidate at the 2022 presidential elections.

Locals and tourists on the Left Bank, the intellectual and cultural heart of Paris, look on amused.

"Even the walls could talk about Ali," smiled Amina Qissi, a waitress at a restaurant opposite the Marche Saint-Germain, who has known Akbar for more than 20 years.

Now 73, Akbar, a slim, fine-featured "character" with newspapers tucked under his arm, is an inseparable part of the neighbourhood, she added.

"Even regular tourists ask where he is if they don't see him," she told AFP.