(AFP) - Located in the town of Sablons near Bordeaux, the business says water levels rose to 80cm at its property.
Manager Didier Rodriguez told reporters that while the shop’s eight employees attempted to move stock off lower shelves, more than 100,000 of their 8 million books were destroyed.
The full damage is yet to be assessed.
Flooding in France
Sablons’ 1,400 inhabitants have experienced flooding since 15 December, with much of southwest France on alert for adverse weather conditions.
The high water comes a month after President Emmanuel Macron declared a state of natural disaster for 214 municipalities in Pas-de-Calais and around 30 in the Nord department due to intense flooding in the north of France.
National forecasters issued flood warnings this week for some 30 departments in the central west and northeast of France, advising vigilance.
The extreme weather events follow exacerbated climate conditions this year.
Europe is the world's fastest-warming continent, according to a report by the EU’s climate monitoring service Copernicus and the World Meteorological Organisation.
Earlier this month, Copernicus reported that 2023 was the warmest year in recorded history.
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2023 has now had six record-breaking months and two record-breaking seasons - summer and autumn.
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The World Bank Group’s Climate Change Knowledge Portal cites increased rainfall and flooding as outcomes of climate change in France.
Books pulped
There will be further health and safety risks, as well as economic impacts, as the effects of climate change continue to progress.
In the wake of the Gironde floods, Le Village du Livre now faces the task of taking inventory of the extensive damage.
The soiled books “will be thrown away to make paper pulp”, Rodriguez says.