today to the rescue of the restorers parisian to extend the time of a summer on the sidewalks surrounding the area : the terraces symbolize “an art of French living and a form of freedom”. They however, will not suffice to satisfy fully the restaurateurs ile-de-france, who eagerly await the date is unofficial as of June 22, and will re-open their indoor rooms.

read also : “Restaurants in Paris: we can’t wait for June 22!”

“The terraces, they are magnets terrible,” explains in the preamble Alain Fontaine, a conservator at the head of the association for the recognition of the bistros and cafes of France to the intangible cultural heritage of humanity. “It is a place of contemplation: look at the pedestal tables, they are installed facing the street, the two chairs side-by-side to watch the people go by and comment. The terrace is a spectacle, watching the human comedy play out,” he continued. “The café de Flore, les deux magots… the emblematic coffees have their own terrace”, and in Midnight in Paris of Woody Allen, “the hero always comes back on the terraces,” says this lover of the brew.

women

The first terrace of coffee that has seen the light of day in Paris was to the Procope, in the latin quarter, around 1686 to accommodate the… women who did not have the right to enter the licensed premises : “when they alighted from their car, they moved to the tables on the terrace,” says Gérard Letailleur, author of the unusual History of parisian cafes (Perrin, 2011). They then popularized around the grands boulevards in the Nineteenth century, ” continues the historian.

read also : Between the cars, the terraces and bike paths, the space war is declared in the agglomerations

After you have disappeared from the landscape for more than two and a half months, these “agoras” natural “that are part of the”DNA of France”, in the words of Alain Fontaine, return, and invest the public space in order to allow restaurant owners to accommodate more clients. In the Ile-de-France, they only allow cafes and restaurants who have to be able to open : the inside of the facilities is not permitted until at least 21 June. The Paris city council has authorized the extension until the end of September of terraces, ephemeral, particularly along the shops if they give their consent, and the occupation of up to three parking spaces. The City has also opened the possibility of piétonniser twenty streets and Paris a terrace giant open pit.

A measure that is discriminatory ?

But the reopening of the only terraces in the Île-de-France does not have unanimous support among restaurateurs, far from it. In the meantime the date is unofficial as of June 22, and will re-open in their entirety, many of them fulminent, especially as the weather is not at the rendezvous. “Allow the terraces, it is good. But all the institutions do not have it, far from it. Back even three weeks the complete opening of restaurants in Paris, it is cut off from the ripple effect of the restoration of the parisian on the entire French tourism. This are billions which are in the process of flying off in favour of other european capitals”, explained, for example, a group of ten heads in a column in le Figaro this week.

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Asked by Le Figaro, Alain Fontaine recalls that only a third of the restaurants are classified by zone orange offers a terrace. And half of them would open. “The horizon is extremely clogged for many of us,” he says. Telework is punishing us because people do not come out, there was more tourists, consumption patterns have shifted the lines, notably with the sale to take away and now we are at the mercy of the climatology. It was the bad luck for 5 years now with the attacks, the yellow vests, the strikes and now the covd-19. It is hard for the moral, but also economically, as we do not know if it is necessary to leave our employees in partial unemployment. I have installed a terrace for the last week, but I lost the money…”

see also – Déconfinement: the day of June 2, a view of two parisian restaurants in reopening