“
We finally have a date!
"Didier Chenet, president of the national group of independent hotel and catering (GNI-HCR), prefers to see the glass half full.
Thursday evening, by announcing a reconfinement which did not speak its name, the President of the Republic endeavored to turn on "
a light at the end of the tunnel
".
According to Emmanuel Macron, bars and restaurants will be able to resume their service on the terrace from mid-May.
"
It is gratifying to have a prospect,
underlines Didier Chenet,
even if I am not sure that this date has been agreed with the ministries ...
"
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Because the announcement of the President of the Republic does not quite stick with the reopening protocol that had been proposed to the representatives of the catering sector in mid-March.
The Minister in charge of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises Alain Griset then presented a phased protocol in three stages with first the resumption of the breakfast service in hotels, then four weeks later the return of the terraces, and finally the resumption of service in restaurants and bars.
According to the President's statements, the recovery would start directly with the second phase of this plan, skipping the first.
"Announcement effects"
A surprise announcement, taken at the risk of proposing an untenable new agenda?
At the end of November 2020, Emmanuel Macron had already considered a resumption of the activity of bars and restaurants from January 20.
The executive had finally had to renege on this promise in the face of the epidemic figures.
“
The president does not control the virus alone.
This new date leaves me perplexed
, comments Hervé Dijols, president of the SNRTC.
This announcement is above all a psychological remedy.
The more time goes by, the more we worry about the summer season
. "
From now on, restaurateurs can hope, in the optimistic scenario of the president, a recovery similar to that they had experienced in early June 2020. After the "
relief
", to finally have a horizon of recovery, professionals are discovering a host of news Questions.
First of all, if the containment is lifted by mid-May, there is no guarantee that this will also be the case with the curfew set at 7 p.m.
"
We also do not know whether restaurants and bars will be able to reopen whatever the department,
" underlines Laurent Fréchet, restaurateur and president of the GNI catering branch.
Read also: Reopening of restaurants, hotels and bars: the three-step plan proposed by the government
Not to mention that not all establishments have terraces, and will have to rely on the accommodating measures of town halls to allow them to resume their activity - by freeing them up parking spaces to set up tables, for example.
The mayor of Paris had made this choice last June.
The service on the terrace is, finally, "
very weather sensitive
" and will ask all restaurateurs to calculate the costs and benefits before deciding to open.
“
We will always be faced with a multitude of realities for restaurants,
summarizes Laurent Fréchet.
For these reasons, we remain cautious about announcement effects.
"