Flashlights that go out to symbolize a restricted night world: 150 to 200 people gathered in Lille on Tuesday evening to protest against the restrictions imposed on bars in the face of the coronavirus, discontent against this type of measures spreading throughout France.
Read also: Taxis and VTC collateral victims of the closure of bars at 10 p.m.
"We are not assassins", "10% spoilsport, 100% punished"
or even
"framed in bars, crammed into apartments"
, could we read on the signs brandished on the Grand'Place de Lille by the participants, who also chanted
“let us work!”.
This gathering was organized by the collective
"hand in hand to save our professions"
, which brings together catering and night professionals.
Owner of the bar Le Privilège and member of the collective, Guillaume Delbarre evokes a
“generalized fed up”.
"We enforce all the protocols to the bottom of the cash and behind, we find ourselves stigmatized"
he was annoyed with AFP.
Since Monday, bars in Lille must close at 10 p.m., restaurants at 12:30 a.m., while the metropolis has been placed in a
"heightened alert zone"
as part of the coronavirus epidemic.
Elsewhere in France, signs of dissatisfaction with restrictions on the opening of bars and restaurants are increasing.
About twenty Parisian bistros and restaurateurs briefly demonstrated Tuesday evening in the east of the capital, rue de Lappe, emblematic of the Bastille district, to protest against the obligation to close at 10 p.m.
Among them, David Zenouda, owner of six bars:
"I have two closed institutions since Monday, these are bars that opened from 19:00 to 5:00 am and make their revenue from 23:00"
, a-t- he explains.
In Marseille, restaurateurs and bar owners implored the administrative court on Tuesday to suspend the decree requiring them to close for 15 days.
Me Grégory Nicolaï, for the Umih, main union in the sector, co-author of the collective action for interim relief against this prefectural decree, with twenty bars and restaurants and almost all local political institutions, denounced a
"hysteria collective ”.
In Rennes, nearly 70 professionals grouped together in the collective
“We will all toast”
called for demonstrations on Wednesday at 5:00 pm.
The members of this collective say they are
"totally abandoned"
and demand
"full compensation [for] operating losses".
From Bordeaux, the media chef Philippe Etchebest himself called to leave restaurants on Friday at 11:45 am with a black armband and to make noise for a minute,
“not to die in silence”.
