The days and nights in Paris are currently - like day and night.
Since the reopening of the cinemas and museums, the café and restaurant terraces, the usual big city life has reigned from late morning to early evening.
There is heavy traffic, people crowd on the sidewalks, at lunchtime and aperitif time, hordes occupy the tables of the restaurants in the open air.
But after sunset there is still a curfew.
For an exploratory tour between midnight and four in the morning, the reporter deliberately chooses the first Sunday hours: in an increasingly blurred past, before the pandemic, before the (too low) estimated 110,000 dead, before the war against the virus declared by the highest authority, danced to it Time the bear. Now there is a strange emptiness. Strange because you can feel the presence of other city dwellers. They race in black cars along the deserted boulevards. They celebrate loudly behind dark facades. But you can't see them. We met a maximum of twenty passers-by within four hours. Some take their dog for a walk - which is allowed. Others are clearly on a forbidden pleasure tour. Third parties, on the other hand, peer cautiously out of gate entrances, one eye on the cell phone,the other on the street: They fear being caught by the police while waiting for the radio rental car they have ordered. The first violation of the curfew costs 135 euros, recalcitrant repeat offenders face a fine of 3750 euros and six months in prison.
"Let me dance, sing in freedom"
One impression that one does not want to get used to is the weak light intensity of the Ville Lumière.
Cinemas, theaters and restaurants are currently shutting down the shop at 8:30 a.m. - if they have already started operating again (which is not profitable for many).
The curfew gives the nocturnal strollers strange city impressions, especially at the former hotspots of conviviality.
In the rue de Lappe, where bars are lined up, only our steps echo over the cobblestones.
All cheap restaurants are closed where the Rue de la Roquette joins the dreary Place de la Bastille - but there is still a smell of fried food in the balmy air.
At the orphaned Café Buci, where the last autochthonous night birds used to order French fries and champagne in the tourist-colonized quarter at three o'clock in the morning, someone rushes around the corner on an electric scooter in faux fur, and young people yelp from the balcony at the Sentier metro station "Laissez-moi danser, chanter en liberté". "Let me dance, sing in freedom" - the hit by Dalida is a secret anthem for hundreds of thousands who see themselves deprived of their evening entertainment by the curfew.
Much of the fascination with Paris was always based on the glamor of its nights. The festivals that the children of the Great Depression celebrated in the jazz cellars of Saint-Germain-des-Prés after the liberation became legendary. But the “existentialist” scene at the time numbered at most a thousand people - and other metropolises now set the pace, namely London and New York. “Paris, la nuit, c'est fini” became the leitmotif of the snobs. Success stories like those of the legendary nightclubs Le Palace between 1978 and 1982 and Queen in the nineties or the worldwide triumph of the French Touch in the same decade, however, belied the eternal complainers. Since 2015, the Parisian Nights have experienced a marked upswing: According to experts, the city of lights has one of the most active and inclusive scenes in Europe.
This is now acutely threatened.
The chain of lockdowns and curfews, only interrupted by a breather in summer, has turned the light off on Parisian nights.
The last exit bans in the capital go back to the times of the German occupation and the Algerian war.
The most recent survey by the state health agency Santé publique France shows how the narrowing of the circle of life affects the mind: insomnia, anxiety and thoughts of suicide are on the rise.
22 percent of the French call themselves depressed today, twelve percentage points more than before the pandemic.
Night owls lack the lifestyle
Le Monde recently published statements by night owls between the ages of twenty and 72 who put what they lack in words: seducing and being seduced, encountering the unknown, letting go and stepping out, the ecstasy of dance, the pounding heart Feeling of being (still) young and alive.
But it is precisely those restaurants that are able to offer this kind of experience that see no light at the end of the tunnel. In the timeline for the gradual lifting of the restrictions, every imaginable establishment is considered - except for the country's 1,600 nightclubs and discos. Despite state aid, thirty percent of them are threatened with ruin, and one hundred and fifty have already shut down since March 2020. But what would a revival of the Roaring Twenties be, as many predict it, without the glittering nights? The dungeon door is already half open again, every second Frenchman has received at least one vaccination, and the virus is continuously losing ground. Excitement, party mood, party hunger vibrate in the spring air. But the nightly amusement shops must remain closed, indefinitely.
Night owls are increasingly defying the ban on gatherings and celebrating “wild” parties in private apartments. The night clubs will remain closed even after the end of the curfew, which has been postponed to 11 p.m. from tomorrow, announced for June 30th.