Covid-19: closed since March, French nightclubs in great difficulty
Nightlife professionals express their anger at being forced to remain closed in Paris on October 2, 2020. AP - Bob Edme
Text by: RFI Follow
2 min
While the French government is tightening the screws to bring the coronavirus pandemic under control, nightclubs, which had to lower the curtain last spring, are not seeing the end of the tunnel despite government aid.
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"
We are let down
", "
the aid is unfair and comes too late
", "
we are considered clowns
", while "
we are real business leaders
".
In the night world, anger bursts out everywhere.
Of the 1,600 nightclubs that generate 30,000 direct jobs in France, more
than 130 have closed down.
Others are in receivership or in safeguard proceedings.
A third of them risk disappearing, warns Thierry Fontaine, president of UMIH-Nuit France, which represents the night world.
Because even closed, costs must be covered.
A manager interviewed by AFP did the count: he must pay 70,000 euros in fixed monthly charges, including 50,000 euros in rent, and his debt amounts to 700,000 euros.
To compensate for these closures, in addition to taking charge of short-time work, the State has set up since June a monthly aid fund of 15,000 euros per month maximum.
Deemed "unfair" by professionals because it is not proportional, the system was adapted in December.
Companies now have the choice between 10,000 euros per month flat rate or an aid of 20% of their monthly turnover.
This support should "
stop the bleeding
" according to the director of the Rotonde and the Bellevilloise in Paris.
“We
still had to hold on until then,
” he concludes.
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