SÈTE, France — France’s nearly 3,000 independent bookstores — welcoming places for literary encounters, casual browsing and helpful staff — have withstood all manner of competition, including big chain stores and digital publishing.

Their survival is mostly due to a 1981 law that allows publishers to set a fixed price for books, in stores and online. The practice is shared across much of Europe and was feared to be under threat in negotiations with the United States over the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, known as the T.T.I.P.

Last month, that threat was taken off the table by the European Union’s chief negotiator, who stated unequivocally that fixed book pricing — or “le prix unique” in French — would not be a matter of debate.

Independent booksellers, in France and especially in Germany, let out a huge sigh of relief. “It was a real fear,” said Guillaume Husson, a representative of the Syndicat de la Librairie Française, a professional association. “The ‘prix unique’ is more than essential: It is what has saved our bookstores.”