Paris (AFP)
Restaurateurs and cafetiers intend to challenge the government's decision to close their establishments as part of the reconfinement in court, the Umih, the main hospitality trades union, announced on Saturday.
"The national Umih (Union des professions des industries de l'hôtellerie) has appealed against the decree of October 29, 2020 which closes" type N "restaurants and drinking places while authorizing collective catering", she indicated, justifying this recourse by "the breach of the principle of equality".
She plans to "finalize" this appeal "before November 20".
"The administrative closure of our restaurants and bars is based on health reasons, but no figures can justify that the cases of contamination were more numerous in these establishments (...) than in collective catering", estimates the syndicate.
He stresses that its members "apply, since their first reopening in June 2020, the same strict health protocols applied by collective catering" and that "at the request of the profession, these protocols were even reinforced in September 2020".
"Why could collective restaurants which welcome more people than our restaurants of 20, 30 places practice a normal activity?" Asked the Umih, contacted by telephone by AFP, denouncing a "distortion of competition by compared to another form of restoration ".
By this action, she hopes to put "pressure on the government" and show that "the sector will not give up to succeed in reopening".
The "goal is not to close collective catering", indicated the organization, recalling that according to a study carried out among its members and published this week, "two establishments in three fear to close definitively by the end of the year due to this second confinement ".
© 2020 AFP