All French amusement parks must still wait before a long-awaited reopening.
Also affected by the closure of ski lifts in winter sports resorts, the Compagnie des Alpes, which owns the Futuroscope and the Parc Astérix in particular, claims that Europe 1 is the victim of a "double penalty".
INTERVIEW
No, children will not be able to kiss or even approach Mickey or Obelix at Christmas: amusement parks must remain closed for several more weeks, due to the coronavirus health crisis, which has led the government to cautiously deconfinate.
But this inevitably has disastrous consequences on the economic health of these highly visited places, such as Parc Astérix and Futuroscope, owned by La Compagnie des Alpes.
Its managing director, Dominique Marcel, evokes Wednesday on Europe 1 a decision that he "does not understand".
250,000 visitors during the period
"We do not understand that at Christmas, we cannot open our parks", denounces the leader at the microphone of Elisabeth Assayag and Emmanuel Duteil in
La France bouge
, highlighting the importance of these two parks, with "250,000 visitors between Futuroscope and Parc Astérix "during these end-of-year celebrations.
For the entire profession, the period represents a turnover of "100 million euros", he insists.
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Dominique Marcel also underlines that these parks have put in place "protocols which have proven their effectiveness".
"This summer, we had a lot of visitors and we still had them on All Saints' Day."
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"Everything is perfect" on the rides
Asked about the possible transmission of the virus favored by the mixing of populations from the whole of France, in cramped places like the merry-go-rounds, Dominique Marcel brushes aside the government's arguments: "Inside the merry-go-rounds, everything is perfect! 'waiting, the gestures of distancing… For months, things went very well, people respected (the protocols) perfectly and we developed teams to welcome visitors. "
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The maintenance of this closure until 2021 coincides with that, controversial, of the ski lifts of ski resorts, directly affecting the Compagnie des Alpes.
"For us, it's a double penalty", laments Dominique Marcel, who believes that its parks and resorts are penalized compared to "other activities".
This hope remains, while Disneyland Paris announced its reopening in February: "We still hope that we can reopen in April since we could not do so this year", wants to believe Dominique Marcel.