Ali Akbar is the last newsboy in Europe

His workday begins at noon and ends at midnight, 12 hours straight, non-stop, selling newspapers. Ali Akbar is known not only in Paris, the city where he lives and works, but throughout France, as he is the last working newsboy in a European country, and despite his age, he shows no signs of retiring.

Ali Akbar was born in 1954 in Rawalpindi, PakistanRaised in a very poor and large family (8 ten siblings, two of whom died in infancy), he left his hometown as a young man in an attempt to find work and send money to his family. After experiences as a sailor and dishwasher and a long journey through several countries, he arrived in Paris in the 1970s, when He started selling newspapers on the street in Latin neighborhood (Saint-Germain-des-Prés and surrounding areas), once a hub for university students and intellectuals. Initially, it sold copies of satirical magazines such as Hara-Kiri e Charlie Hebdo, thanks to a lucky meeting with another seller, and then also newspapers like The World e Libération.

In the areas of Paris where he goes around selling newspapers on the streets, Ali is very well known, also for his kindness, to the point that he decided to tell everything in an autobiographical book entitled <I make people laugh, but the world makes me cry>.  In January 2026 French President Emmanuel Macron appointed him Knight of the National Order of Merit, one of France's highest civilian honors, to celebrate his commitment of over 50 years and the symbolic value of his presence on the streets of Paris.

Cover photo by GUILLAUME BAPTISTE/AFP via Getty Images

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