A bar closed during confinement, here in Paris.
(illustration) -
Elizabeth Pantaleo / Shutterstock / SIPA
Between 300 and 350 people demonstrated Friday afternoon in Saint-Étienne in favor of the reopening of all businesses, according to the Union of Trades and Industries of the Hotel Industry, organizer of this authorized gathering.
For more than an hour, in the main square in the city center, restaurateurs, cafetiers, hoteliers, managers of nightclubs and sports halls displayed the slogan "Let us work" and waved banners bearing the inscription "Je am restaurateur ”,“ Nightclubs in danger ”or“ The night must see the day again ”.
The restaurateur Alexandre Cipriani, president of this professional union in the Loire, took the floor to express how “it was humiliating not to be able to live from his profession, his passion, his art, to give alms to obtain some aid to survive ”, while warning that“ 50,000 bankruptcies and 250,000 layoffs would happen, just in [their] branch ”.
"Stop injustice"
A figure hanged at the end of a rope, with a sign “Stop injustice”, symbolized the dark future of these professionals, some of whom placed a white rose on a coffin.
"Some elected officials, suppliers and customers, but also other traders who will be able to reopen Saturday, such as hairdressers, were present as a sign of solidarity," said Henriette Perret, secretary general of Umih Loire.
The demonstration was authorized by the prefect of the Loire Catherine Seguin, who for her part announced on Friday having taken a decree authorizing the shops of the department to open every Sunday until the end of the year, "for a better recovery of economic activity and better regulation of customer flows ”.
Society
What to retain from Jean Castex's press conference on the relaxation of containment?
Society
"We are the great forgotten", regret the managers of indoor leisure, asphyxiated by the crisis
Confinement
Coronavirus
Covid 19
Demonstration
Saint Etienne
Economy
Hotel
Restoration