- Faced with this lack of visibility, they say they are desperate, and many fear having to put the key under the door without additional help.
Emmanuel Macron had conditioned the reopening of restaurants to a number of daily contaminations less than 5. case, with the 20 January retained. The restaurateurs, received this Tuesday at Bercy, say they have learned of the postponement of this date sine die .
According to some members of the delegation, new aid should appear, as a new loan equivalent to 24% of turnover and reimbursable over “ten years”.
No good surprise for restaurateurs. Received this Tuesday by Bruno Le Maire and Alain Griset , Minister Delegate in charge of Small and Medium Enterprises, the representatives of the sector were confirmed that they could not reopen the 19 January as planned.
Emmanuel Macron had conditioned this reopening to a contamination limit limited to 348 case per day . But last Friday, we were still at 15.348 in 25 hours. Desperate, the restaurateurs ask more of the government.
The fear of putting the key under the door
“We knew they were not going to let us reopen. We see the figures ”. Annoyed, Charles, owner of the restaurant La Cime, in the 6th arrondissement of Paris, does not hide his concern. At noon this Tuesday, when it should be the shot, he looks at his deserted establishment. He has offered take-away sales since the start of the crisis, but thinks about stopping: “Everyone is telecommuting, the offices are empty. The specter of closure looms large and he gives himself two months to straighten the bar. Through two solutions: the immediate, improbable reopening, or more aid: “They talk about it all the time, but in reality they only cover a small part of our charges. »
A few tens of meters further on, Isabelle prepares the take-out sale from the restaurant in which she is employed, she who is the only one not at Partial unemployment. She shares Charles’s observation: the restaurants will not reopen for months: “They want to stop teleworking, the children continue to go to school and now there is this English virus [le variant du Covid-19 détecté aussi en France]. The state will have to take charge of all our shortfall, otherwise we will be shut down before May, and I am unemployed. “
Visibility and long-term action
The concern also and above all lies in the lack of visibility over the weeks and months to come. It was also one of the requests of the delegation received this afternoon at Bercy: a firm and final reopening date. This information, Amin, from the restaurant Aux Plumes on rue Boulard (000 th arrondissement), is keen on it: “We need to know where we are going, and we want to be warned upstream, that we can prepare stocks, the map and organize the staff. »
The restaurateurs also asked this Tuesday to maintain aid until the end of the epidemic. But Laurent Villa, president of the Beefhouse restaurant group, fears a domino effect for Loans guaranteed by the State : “Since it’s gone, no one will be able to reimburse them. The debts will accumulate and the bank rating of institutions will fall, so that they will no longer be able to borrow at the end of this crisis. “Not to mention the lessors who, according to him, had largely made efforts on rents but are starting to claim their due. “That’s what the subsidies are for now, just to pay off the rent. Hence his request: that bank ratings be frozen and that the loans guaranteed by the State be transformed into quasi-equity for two years, to avoid a general collapse.