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A flood of cyclists was expected, a riot in the subway, animation in the stores. Rien de rien . Paris stretched 55 days of confinement with parsimony, without traffic jams or burdens in the metro, with shops with glittering windows and very few customers. You can leave the house at any time. But, as if the sheets had been glued to the citizenry, life started at idle . Everyone with a mask, yes.
And thank goodness. Because the law that extends the state of sanitary emergency was not promulgated in time . The Constitutional Council could not examine the text until this Monday because the debates took a long time on Saturday.
The Government approved by decree the end of confinement and the freedom to leave the home without limit, the division of France into green and red departments and the mandatory use of the mask on public transport. A joint statement from the Elysée and Matignon at 1:10 in the morning reported this.
Among what will come into force with the late approval of the Constitutional Court, the limitation of travel to 100 km and access to the metro at rush hour, reserved for workers with an affidavit from the employer. So for a few hours you could travel without limit. The President of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron, the President of the Senate, Gérard Larcher, and two groups of 60 deputies and 60 senators filed an appeal.
The Council has just validated the law. But he has issued two "partial censures" on the most controversial aspect, the 'tracking' of infected people and their relationships . It limits the number of people who can access this data and has decided that a liberties judge controls if a patient cannot leave their place of confinement.
Paris after 55 days of confinement
None of these discussions was in the atmosphere of a gray, cool and very windy morning when I greeted my kiosk. Two Saturdays ago, he broke the historical record for sales of the position. "Everything sold out, newspapers, supplements, magazines" he tells me with a half smile. It doesn't tell me how much it billed, but it was 70% higher than a normal Saturday. "The confined people didn't know what to do anymore and they started reading . " I add that he stayed open 55 days, while four other neighboring points of sale closed.
In the flower shop everything smells freshly cut . I get carried away by the urge and come out with three hydrangeas at 10 bucks each. White and splendid. A clueless grandmother asks if there are still tulips. "No ma'am, the bulb season is over."
Four police officers at the beginning of Rue Rivoli divert private vehicle traffic. Until now there were three lanes: the bus, the bicycle and the car lanes. The latter has been reconditioned for bikes and scooters. Today, spare. The scooters are back. Customers not yet
In the metro, very few people. All passengers wear masks . And we sit at a distance. Half of the seats have a sticker that indicates that they should not be used. On the platforms, stickers show travelers where to put themselves to be a meter away. At the entrance of some stations, operators distributed hydroalcoholic gel.
Except on line 13, and due to a traffic problem, there have been no crowds . Although teleworking has caught on, the number of travelers will increase in the coming days as more business and schools get back to business.
He remembered on the subway how we used to laugh at Japanese tourists, who before the Covid were already wearing masks everywhere. Will they cover more now? The answer comes to my mind on the stairs of the George V station. A young woman with oriental features has stuck a strip of cardboard to the back of her cap that goes over her shoulders. "This is a 1m hat. Respect the distance . "
On the Champs Elysees life has returned. Dropper. It is no longer the desert of a couple of weeks ago, when all the blinds were down and there was not a soul on the sidewalks. A few years ago, the last tenant was evicted and Parisians do not appreciate the avenue, which has become a commercial center for gold card tourists.
Without tourists, with bars and chains of little hair restaurants still closed, people are missing for so much sidewalk. The Apple Store has not opened, but Zara has.
It is confirmed that Parisians and Parisians what they most wanted was to go to the hairdresser. If it is usually a buoyant business (grooming your beard does not drop € 30 in the center of the capital), today almost all hairdressers had a full schedule .
On the Champs Elysees only two establishments have (some) queue to enter. A shoe store and the ship teaches Louis Vuitton. In front of it, there are always around twenty clients waiting their turn. Today there were two. So I decided to go inside.
After the gel stream, a shop assistant guides me. "Before, the client could move around the store on his own. Now they are all accompanied from the moment they enter until they leave . " He points me to the leather goods and women's clothing for the new season, beautiful of course, he walks me through the men's area where I look at sneakers for € 690. I just confessed to him that I'm a journalist and I'm not going to buy anything. It takes me to the center of the superstore, where the suitcases and trunks are. In case you are curious, the price of the mythical trunk starts at 24,000 ...
Paris is the capital of luxury and Avenue Montaigne is its nerve center. Marlene Dietrich lived on this street for the last ten years of her life. Confined to her apartment from which she hardly left to avoid seeing her decline. Now it's a souk where Versace, Dior, Chanel and other flashy names are door to door . This morning, deserts. The only door I saw open was a tiny room with trikinis at € 410 in the window. It was opened to the delivery man who brought lunch to the shop assistants.
With a jump, I have approached the heart of Boulevard Saint Germain . Almost without a pulse. The Flore, Les Deux Magots and Lipp, its mythical cafes, are still closed. But it has opened the door 'The foam of the pages', the best bookstore in Paris. With reduced hours because without the intellos bars it doesn't make sense to be until 11 pm At the moment, until 7 pm Inside, I count five clients. And all the news, on its wide tables like a wave that dies on the beach. Yes, life has returned to Paris . Stumbling and with little force. Convalescent from the virus. But life that anticipates better days. In fact the sun has risen.
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