Letters have been issued to them by Parisian authorities requesting them to temporarily close from July 26 next year as part of efforts to ensure the security of the Ceremony.

Paris is planning to become the first Olympic host to stage the Opening Ceremony outside a stadium with athletes expected to travel on boats along the Seine in front of 500,000 spectators.

There are plans to move 570 of the 900 stalls that line the Seine with the Police prefect telling the booksellers that it was being done to secure a "place of event exposed to the risk of acts of terrorism".

Pascal Corseaux, vice-president of the Cultural Association of Booksellers of Paris, warned that the decision has created a "logistical nightmare".

"Many of them will not survive," said Corseaux in a report by news agency Agence France-Presse.

"There is a much simpler solution which is to bring in a deminers, seal the boxes and then reopen very quickly."

Booksellers are determined to cash in on the arrival of millions of tourists expected to flock to the capital during the Olympics.

Among those is Guido Cuccolo who claimed he was "optimistic" of winning the battle to stay at his location at Quai de Conti, insisting "the Paris town hall has nothing to do with us".

"The good times were 20 years or more ago before the internet," said Cuccolo.

"Now, we have to work to get to the minimum wage."

Another bookseller Alexia Delrieu has been situated by the Tournelle Bridge for more than a decade.

She said, "Those who tell us that it is entirely feasible to move, that we will be given back very beautiful boxes, they do not realise.

"I have neighbours who, if they don’t sell one day, they simply don’t eat."

The second-hand booksellers on the banks of the River Seine, known as the "bouquinistes", have become a symbol of Paris having been there for more than 450 years.

Around 240 booksellers run the 900 green boxes containing more than 300,000 books, stamps, cards and posters.