His fate was not mentioned during the speech by Emmanuel Macron, Sunday evening: the world of culture believes to be the great forgotten of the general deconfinement of the country. Officially, theaters can reopen now and anywhere in France. In practice, however, the drastic physical distancing measures imposed against the coronavirus complicate the equation of the owners of establishments.
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Why can you sit next to a stranger on an airplane or train and not in a concert hall? This is sort of the question that agitates the culture sector, already weighted with a loss of two billion euros, according to Prodiss, the main union of the performing arts. Admittedly, today, the rooms can theoretically reopen, but with a distance of one meter between the spectators. This means that the public is much less numerous. So there is ultimately less cash flow.
"It doesn't make sense not to reopen"
"I hear everywhere that we are able to control the epidemic, so it doesn't make sense not to reopen theaters today," laments Gilles Petit, producer of shows. "All the producers are working on a horizon which for some is fixed in September, for others in January ... We have programmed things but we are there in June, and we have no certainty of being able to do it."
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If there are no concerts, plays or one-man shows before 2021, half of the jobs in the sector would be threatened, according to the Prodiss. No less than 10,000 shows would be canceled.