Covid-19: these restaurants that have reopened despite threats of sanction

The service is not yet finished when called.

"It's still the shot," explains Julien Achard, the boss of the Pescador in Isle-sur-la-Sorgue, in the Vaucluse at the other end of the line.

This Monday, as he had announced, he rekindled the stoves in his restaurant and served the 70 customers who had booked, "and the few who came just for a drink."

At the head of the movement "The essential Ultras", which defends catering establishments closed because of the Covid-19, Julien Achard is not the only one in France to have opened this Monday.

In a video shared thousands of times, Stéphane Turillon, the boss of a restaurant in the Doubs, had called on his colleagues to open their restaurants on Monday to express their fed up with their forced closure.

A call not relayed by professional organizations, the latter even recommending their members not to take part.

At the initiative of the call, Stéphane Turillon therefore served a hundred customers, in front of his restaurant, standing in tents, and not inside.

“We want to engage in a dialogue with the State, it is not by closing everything that we will fight this pandemic.

I am just asking for my right to work, ”explains the boss of“ La Source Bleue ”in Cusance.

Open or half-open restaurants

It is outside, too, that Julien Achard served his clients.

Facing the gendarmes, stationed in front.

"The mask was worn as soon as we did not consume", defends the business manager.

Like other restaurateurs, he had filed a declaration of demonstration with the prefecture in order, he hopes, to guard against any sanction.

If everything went well with him, this is not the case everywhere.

"My colleagues told me that some yellow vests came and wanted to sit at the table to talk about them", explains Julien Achard.

Many did not want to be at the origin of the same images as in Nice where the boss of the "Poppies" had opened his establishment last Wednesday, as if nothing had happened, without distancing or mask.

In his garden in Wirwignes (North), where Claude Quétu parked his double-decker bus which serves as a restaurant, there were also people on Monday noon.

"I made about sixty covers", assures the boss of the Red Bus, "happy" to see "life" again.

Once the gendarmes and journalists left, "several got on the bus upstairs to eat," explains the restaurant owner.

And the boss says: “Before, I warned them all that they risked a 135 euros fine each and I told them what I was risking.

"

It's hard to know how many restaurants actually opened on Monday lunchtime.

On the Facebook group “My restaurant opens on February 1,” which had almost 30,000 members on Monday, several Internet users are posting photos of open or half-open restaurants with only a counter outside, without a table or chair.

It remains to be seen whether this remains considered take-out, legal and widespread, or the actual opening of the restaurant, prohibited.

Government threatens

Earlier in the morning, the Minister of the Economy, Bruno Le Maire, warned the restaurant owners: “All those who remain open will be suspended for a month from access to the solidarity fund and if ever there is a recurrence, they will not. 'no longer have access to it at all,' he told RTL.

And the minister added: "I do not want it to spread, for it to become either a habit, or a way of defying the ban.

The government spokesman, Gabriel Attal, had earlier justified these “financial” sanctions against the “very small minority of restaurateurs who decide to open even though they are administratively closed”.

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In Vaucluse, Julien Achard is satisfied with his operation.

“We are happy because we have shown that we can serve while respecting the health protocol,” he explains.

During the last announcements on the subject, it was not expected that restaurants will reopen at the earliest before mid-February.

But with the epidemic resurfacing, and the threat of more contagious variants, restaurants aren't expected to reopen anytime soon.