Ali Akbar, Paris’s last newspaper hawker, made a knight of the National Order of Merit

Ali Akbar, a 73-year-old believed to be France’s last newspaper hawker, was made a knight of the National Order of Merit in a ceremony at the Élysée Palace on Wednesday, where President Emmanuel Macron described him as the 'most French of the French'. Born in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, Akbar arrived in Paris in 1973.

After visa issues stymied his first attempt to build a life in Europe, he sought work to support his parents and seven siblings and, with help from an Argentinian student selling satirical magazines, joined the city's few dozen newspaper sellers. For more than 50 years he walked the cobbled streets of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, selling newspapers to figures such as the former president François Mitterrand and to Sciences Po students who later included Macron and former prime minister Édouard Philippe.

Akbar said that in his early years he slept rough under bridges and in squalid rooms as he tried to send as much money as possible to Pakistan; Marie-Laure Carrière, a lawyer, called him 'an institution'. As the newspaper industry declined, Akbar said sales that once reached 200 a day are now much lower: 'I sell about 20 copies of Le Monde in eight hours,' he said.

He said he persists by making jokes and creating an atmosphere on the terraces and in cafes.

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