There was champagne in flutes on the tables and plates full of food on the platters.
This is what alerted the bicycle police who, Friday noon, enter the closed terrace of L'Annexe, restaurant on the Ile de la Cité (Paris, 4th) which faces the Paris Court of Appeal. .
The address is also a few hundred meters from the police headquarters.
Signs on the ground advertise take-out.
On the slate, we find “Aubrac butcher's piece, fries”, “mixed omelette and fries” or even “beef tartare”.
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But in fact, when the agents intervened, these dishes were taken a few meters away.
About ten people eat and drink standing in fifteen square meters on this sheltered terrace.
The masks are absent from the faces.
On the bistro tables, arranged along the window, the police count five plates with leftover meals.
Paris, boulevard du Palais (4th), this Sunday noon.
From the closed terrace, you can see the gates of the Paris Court of Appeal.
LP / Nicolas Goinard
Only a man is seated in front of his plate inside the room.
It is visible from the entrance.
In front of him a basket of bread and glasses.
The boss explains to the police that it is his supplier.
He and the employees of L'Annexe are the only ones wearing masks.
"We must eat well"
When agents ask for customer identities, the mood becomes a bit tense.
And for good reason: most are magistrates who work at the court of appeal.
If they are there, it is because "we must eat well" during the meridian break, they justify.
Worse, they also try to destabilize the officials by asking them in what framework they intervene… The police officers still obtain their identities and take them out.
In total, ten people are finally fined, 135 euros per customer.
This Sunday noon, the establishment is closed.
In the window, a note dating from last October 6, when the breweries were still open, specifies, however: "Wearing a mask obligatory even between dishes and for any movement".
The slate announcing "The Annex is open" has been put away and risks being so for another 15 days, the duration provided for in the event of an administrative closure, which would result in the loss of state aid.
“It's a take-out that has degenerated, says someone close to the restaurant.
There are 150 police officers who pass by every day, Préfet Lallement who goes through the door just next door, the manager would have liked someone to come and tell him that what he was doing was not in the nails ”.
"It was not hidden in a back room out of sight"
Pierre, who works on the Île de la Cité, admits having eaten there recently.
"This is not an underground restaurant like what you can see everywhere," said the thirty-something.
It wasn't hidden in a private back room.
It's been like this for several weeks.
There are just tables that allow people to have lunch standing on the terrace rather than curdling outside.
It has become a real puzzle to know how to eat.
Amandine, who lives on Boulevard Saint-Michel, also recently had a coffee on one of these tables.
“I even saw the police coming there to buy food while people were on the tables,” she recalls.
It never posed a problem… ”
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Nevertheless, the presence of magistrates in this restaurant is a stain.
"This scrambles the message and suggests that there would be privileges for people who are supposed to enforce the laws", gets carried away a Parisian magistrate who quotes in passing a recent article in the Parisian in which it was already question a restaurant close to a court frequented by police officers and magistrates.
"We are going to create Al Capones of the restoration"
Because these cases are not isolated and they disturb a whole fringe of the profession.
The Umih (Union of Trades and Hospitality Industries) is moreover dissociating itself from these openings.
"We are legalists and anything that is prohibited by law, we do not defend it," answers Jean Terlon, vice-president of Umih for the catering sector.
It is unfair to open under these conditions.
"
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To respond to the proliferation of these clandestine restaurants, controls were intensified to curb the spread of the virus and its variants and led to the discovery in the capital, between Thursday and Friday, of twenty-four establishments that did not follow the rules.
All will be subject to a 15-day administrative closure.
The measure "will be notified to each of these establishments in the coming hours," said the Paris police headquarters in a press release released on Saturday.
Bored, a cowardly brewery owner: “If this crisis lasts, we will create Al Capones in the restaurant business.
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