They have not welcomed clients for over a year and are eager to see them return to the dance floor.
The future of nightclubs remains blocked while the horizon of events is clearing up with the organization of test concerts and the resumption of weddings.
Deeming themselves victims of "discrimination", operators of nightclubs plead their cause and voice their distress this Wednesday before the Council of State in Paris.
At 10 a.m., the summary proceedings of the main union of the Union of Trades and Hospitality Industries (Umih), will be examined during a hearing.
He asks that the discotheques be integrated "urgently" of the deconfinement plan of the government unveiled on April 30 so that they can reopen their doors on June 30.
The decision is expected in a few days.
According to the federation, 152 nightclubs - out of the 1,600 present in France - had definitively closed at the end of March 2021.
"June 15 at the latest"
“Everything we have been proposing to do for a year has been refused.
Today, it is proposed to impose the sanitary pass, that only concerts of more than 1000 people will have, at least the first two months, to remove the changing rooms, to distribute hydroalcoholic gel of course and possibly to wear the mask. to access the toilets or to order at the bar, ”the president of Umih Nuit, Thierry Fontaine, told Agence France Presse.
"There we would find, not a normal life, but an exploitable discotheque", he added while specifying that the professionals were going to write this Wednesday a new sanitary protocol proposal which will be sent to the government.
This Wednesday, restaurants and bars reopen their terraces - where contagions are considered less likely than indoors - before welcoming their customers in rooms without any gauge as of June 30.
As for the operators of nightclubs, they must wait until "June 15 at the latest" to be set on a reopening date, according to the government.
A deadline deemed too short by professionals to prepare for the season and recruit seasonal workers.
Night establishment operators believe they are victims of “discrimination” by being the only sector “to have no date” for resuming their activity: test concerts will take place from the end of May, and weddings will be able to resume with gauges and a curfew at 11 p.m. on June 9, then freely as of June 30.
Swinger saunas and swingers clubs
Others, like certain swingers' places, “will open with a half-gauge on June 9 and without restrictions on June 30”, when they have no dance activity and are classified as “type N” like the drinking establishments and restaurants, while libertine saunas - in the same administrative category as sports halls - will also reopen on June 9, reports Thierry Fontaine from Umih Nuit.
"Explain to us how in a swingers club, or a libertine sauna, we can respect barrier gestures?
How, in a wedding, can we dance and feast, and not in a nightclub?
», Asks the president of this federation.
Umih Nuit also argues that private parties and clandestine parties are multiplying without security or control.
Since last year, scientists have established that Covid-19 is transmitted in particular in closed places via aerosols, that is to say the invisible clouds of particles produced by the breathing, speech or cries of people. infected, and which will concentrate in the air if ventilation is poor.
"Plan for discos"
The employers' union would also like to have “the absence of fair and appropriate economic measures” recognized in nightclubs.
If from December 1, “restaurant owners and discotheque operators were entitled to aid from the Solidarity Fund of 10,000 euros per month or 20% of their turnover, they (have) closed 109 days, and We 290 days, the treasuries were not emptied in the same way ”, argues Thierry Fontaine.
He also adds that “they had the right to take out sales and click and collect not deducted from aid.
In order to support nightclubs in the long term, the government has promised a “nightclub plan”.
To make progress on the conditions for a forthcoming reopening, Bercy has indicated that it is working on the organization of a “test” evening.