RESTAURANT AND COUVRE-FEU – As of Saturday, October 24, restaurants in 38 departments of France, as well as Polynesia, newly placed in the maximum alert zone, close their doors at 9 p.m., for a period of 6 weeks. In addition, all restaurants in France now apply the reinforced health protocol.
[Mis à jour le 23 octobre 2020 à 00h00] From Saturday 24 October 2020 to Saturday 5 December 2020, the restaurants located in the 38 departments newly placed in the maximum alert zone that are Ain, the Alpes-Maritimes, the Ardèche, the Ardennes, the Ariège, the Aube, Aveyron, Bas-Rhin, Calvados, Southern Corsica, Côte-d’Or, Drôme, Gard, Haute-Corse, Haute-Loire, Haute-Savoie, Haute- Vienne, Hautes-Alpes, Hautes-Pyrénées, Ille-et-Vilaine, Indre-et-Loire, Jura, Loiret, Lozère, Maine-et-Loire, Marne, Meurthe- et-Moselle, Oise, Pas-de-Calais, Puy-de-Dôme, Pyrénées-Atlantiques, Pyrénées-Orientales, Saône-et-Loire, Savoie, Tarn, Tarn-et- Garonne, Var, Vaucluse, and French Polynesia can only stay open from 6 a.m. until 9 p.m., in order to respect the extended curfew, announced by Prime Minister Jean Castex at a press conference, to slow down Covid-19 contamination. 16 departments have already been affected by this curfew for a week (find the full list below).
In addition, Prime Minister Jean Castex had specified Thursday, October 15 that all restaurants in France, even outside the curfew, must now respect the reinforced health protocol validated by the High Council of Public Health.
The President of the Republic Emmanuel Macron announced a week ago the establishment of a curfew from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. in Paris and Île-de-France and in eight metropolises that are Grenoble, Lille , Lyon, Aix-Marseille, Montpellier, Rouen, Saint-Etienne and Toulouse. This Thursday, October 22, 2020, following Jean Castex’s press conference, 54 departments and Polynesia are now affected by this curfew. : these are Paris, Ain, Alpes-Maritimes, Hautes-Alpes, Ardèche, Ardennes, Ariège, Aube, Aveyron, Bouches-du-Rhône, Calvados , Haute-Corse, Corse-du-Sud, Côte-d’Or, Drôme, Essonne, Gard, Haute-Garonne, Hérault, Ille-et-Vilaine, Indre -et-Loire, Isère, Jura, Loire, Haute-Loire, Loiret, Lozère, Maine-et-Loire, Marne, Meurthe-et-Moselle, North, Oise, Pas-de-Calais, Puy-de-Dôme, Pyrénées-Atlantiques, Hautes-Pyrénées, Pyrénées-Orientales, Bas-Rhin, Rhône, Saône-et-Loire, Savoie, Haute- Savoie, Seine-Maritime, Seine-et-Marne, Yvelines, Tarn, Tarn-et-Garonne, Var, Vaucluse, Haute-Vienne, Hauts-de-Seine, Seine-Saint- Denis, Val-de-Marne, Val-d’Oise and Polynesia. The curfew is in effect until Saturday 5 December 2020. Here is what you need to know about the implementation of this curfew in restaurants:
“If you live next to the restaurant, you can go out at 9 pm and be at home. If you have half an hour of transport, you will organize yourself to leave it at 8:30 pm,” Emmanuel Macron said. In the event of non-compliance with the curfew, controls are applied with a fine set at 135 euros and 1,500 euros in the event of a repeat offense. For restaurateurs, “there can of course be exemptions, like going to or coming back from work,” said Emmanuel Macron.
Despite the curfew, restaurants providing home delivery of meals can however continue to work to prepare orders after 9 p.m. These establishments are part of the list of “exceptions” announced by Prime Minister Jean Castex at a press conference.
Outside curfew, from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m., restaurants in the maximum alert zone can remain open provided they comply with the anti-Covid health charter. Discover below the list of the sanitary protocol to deal with the coronavirus :
Find out in detail the reinforced health protocol applied in all restaurants in France (if this reinforced protocol is not respected by restaurateurs, the government can close these establishments in violation):
- Display of a gauge indicating the total capacity of reception
- Preferred table payment
- Safety distance of 1 meter between tables
- Tables limited to 6 people maximum (children included)
- Identification of customer details through a “reminder book” (explanations below)
- Hydroalcoholic gel available on all tables
- Ban on consumption while standing inside and outside
- Compliance with the obligation to wear a mask by both professionals and customers except when eating dishes
- Reservations recommended to avoid crowds
The Head of State Emmanuel Macron announced that the curfew concerned in particular all the 8 departments of Île-de-France. More precisely, all the restaurants in the city of Paris (75), the departments of Seine-et-Marne (77), Yvelines (78), Essonne (91), Hauts-de-Seine (92) , Seine-Saint-Denis (93), Val-de-Marne (94) and Val-d’Oise (95).
To summarize, all the restaurants in Île-de-France, like the 53 other French departments, remain closed from 9 p.m. until 6 a.m., for six weeks. During their openings, they must continue to respect the sanitary protocol, namely the payment at the table in order to avoid the additional displacement of the customer, tables of 6 people maximum, the display of his maximum capacity at the entrance, the distance between the tables of at least 1 meter and the identification of customer details via a “reminder book”, in order to trace the thread of contact cases. “If we have an employee who tests positive, well we will call back the customer in question whose head chef took care of the table, to warn him”, summarized Stéphane Manigold, owner of several restaurants in the capital, on Europe 1.
If restaurant owners are now required to write this “reminder book”, taking the temperature of customers at the entrance is not required. But certain restaurateurs in particular criticize this reminder book. “This reminder book is a sketch! Our clients do not want to be called and forced to be tested if they were at the other end of the room from the person positive for the covid … They will put false names, it is useless, “announced a restaurateur at Le Figaro.
The restaurant customer is given a form on arrival. He must provide at least these two pieces of information: the date and time of arrival, and a means of contact. This data will be deleted after 2-4 weeks. The restaurant owner can refuse the customer if the latter does not wish to complete the form.
The reminder book lets you know which customers have come to the restaurant, with their contact details: phone number or e-mail. This contact book allows restaurant customers to be notified by Health Insurance in the event of a case of Covid-19 being detected in the establishment. This system was already in force in Belgium and in several regions of Germany.
Restaurants, which are defined as establishments primarily engaged in the sale of meals, must remain open from 6 a.m. until 9 p.m., subject to compliance with sanitary protocol. The take-out sale of alcohol and the consumption of alcohol on public roads are prohibited from 9 p.m.
Restaurants located outside the 54 departments in the maximum alert zone can open at normal times, provided they comply with the reinforced health protocol.
“Death announced”, “sacrifice”, “disguised closure” … The reactions of catering professionals have fired since the announcement of Emmanuel Macron on the establishment of a curfew at 9 pm in the areas of maximum alert …
The entire restaurant industry deplores a “disguised closure”
“In Paris, we don’t eat at chicken time”: the president of the UMIH at Paris-IDF (Union des Métiers et des Industries de l’Hôtellerie) expressed his anger over the curfew at 9 pm in the Apolline de Malherbe program on RMC. In the “total incomprehension”, Franck Delvau underlines that “the president yesterday quoted several times the professionalism of the restorers compared to the sanitary protocol (…) and besides that we are told you will close at 9 pm (. ..) In the meantime, we were nevertheless told that covid clusters were in private places “. Annoyed, he believes that the closure of restaurants and bars “will not prevent some from continuing to party, in apartments transformed into nightclubs, without any health protocol”.
And he is not the only one to point out a misunderstanding. Michel Sarran, juror of the Top Chef show, spoke on France Info on the subject: “We have the impression of being once again stigmatized. How to understand that only restaurants, bars and all that concerns the event is closed while life, moreover, goes on all day? ” The establishment of a curfew is, according to the Michelin-starred chef Michel Sarran, a killing of the catering profession: “It’s catastrophic. There is no other word. Anger, incomprehension. And then, frankly, a big fear. Already, we had a knee on the ground. I think that for the blow, it is the final blow, “he reacted on France Info. As for the starred chef Christian Têtedoie, who works in Lyon, he is already counting on a loss of turnover of “40 to 50%”.
“It is clear that this decision is equivalent to a re-closing of our establishments” and is “fraught with consequences for the sector (…) already hit hard by this crisis” https://t.co/1GbFNcvdIb
– GNI-HCR (@GNI_CHR) October 14, 2020
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For the organizations representing the hotel and catering industry, the SNRTC, the GNI and the UMIH, this decision is equivalent to closing the restaurants: “This new time constraint, which condemns the evening service, has the pure and simple consequence of to force our restaurants to close, ”they say in a joint statement. Bitter, the president of the UMIH Paris-IDF Franck Delvau already imagines “30% of bankruptcy” in the profession if nothing is done. Even if partial unemployment is 100% insured in the event of closure and the solidarity fund is activated according to the threshold for loss of turnover (from 50%), this will not be sufficient. If Emmanuel Macron has promised “additional support mechanisms”, including exemption from the total employer charge, restaurant owners are demanding a moratorium on rents, operating losses and an unlimited solidarity fund.
Far from being appeased by the promises of the Head of State, Philippe Belot, vice-president of the UMIH of Haute-Garonne, for his part calls for a form of insurrection: “It will explode”, a- he predicted with La Dispatch from the South. “We will remind them that at one time we cut off heads that we put on spikes. It is the only solution to make them understand”.
Bars located in the maximum alert zone must completely close their establishment, from Saturday, October 17, for six weeks during the curfew. The other bars in France remain open.
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