"The State is killing us", "All for the night": about 200 professionals in the night industry demonstrated Sunday in Paris to demand the reopening of the 1,600 nightclubs in the country who are fighting for their survival after the first wave of coronavirus.
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"Half of the clubs will disappear"
"Half of the clubs will disappear", or about 800 nightclubs, if a reopening is not decreed in September and "30 to 40%, now," warned Matthieu Lebrun, spokesman for the managers of nightclubs in Normandy, came to protest near the Ministry of Health in the 7th arrondissement of the capital. "They let us hope for a hypothetical reopening in early July. There, we need a specific date," he claims, assuring that the establishments are ready to reopen respecting a "strict health protocol" including in particular the compulsory use of mask, respecting the distance between boxes and "tracing" via the StopCovid application.
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"Shocked" by the concert in Nice
Many professionals said they were "shocked" by the proliferation of private parties without respecting barrier gestures and concerts bringing together thousands of unmasked people, like Saturday in Nice. In photos and videos shared on social networks, we see a compact crowd dancing, while the government has called for vigilance and the wearing of a mask to "prevent" any risk of the second wave of the Covid-19 epidemic in France.
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Last week, night professionals had obtained the support of a hundred deputies who had pleaded for a reopening of their establishments on July 10. Wednesday, the Minister of Health Olivier Véran had however announced that the discotheques would remain closed "for health reasons", referring to the case of Switzerland where a case in a discotheque had "led to the confinement of 300 people, with risks of dissemination community ".
"Many establishments can no longer hold. Normally the cash for a nightclub is two months," said AFP Alexandre Habibi from Groupe Paris Nuit, magazine of the sector.