France Savours The Return Of Its Iconic Cafes And Restaurants

Cafes and restaurants reopened across France on Tuesday as the country took its latest step out of coronavirus lockdown, with clients seizing the chance to bask on sunny terraces after 10 weeks of closures to fight the outbreak

Paris, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 2nd Jun, 2020 ) :Cafes and restaurants reopened across France on Tuesday as the country took its latest step out of coronavirus lockdown, with clients seizing the chance to bask on sunny terraces after 10 weeks of closures to fight the outbreak.

"I'm almost overwhelmed," Martine Depagniat, wearing a beige face mask and sunglasses, said at the Cafe de la Comedie in Paris, just across the street from the Louvre Museum where she works.

"Coffee on a terrace, that's Paris!," she said. "I think people really need a return to normal, even though there's still a bit of nervousness." In the French capital and its suburbs, only outdoor seating and takeout is allowed, since dining rooms remain closed because of high contagion risks in the region.

But in the rest of the country cafes and restaurants are fully open, though with strict social distancing rules of at least one metre (three feet) between tables, and no standing at bars for drinks.

Some even welcomed customers at the stroke of midnight to celebrate their newfound freedom.

"We're leaving our confinement, to rediscover the pleasures and good times spent together," said Frederic de Boulois, president of a regional hotel association in Nantes, western France, at the aptly named Prison du Bouffay, a restaurant that sits atop a former mediaeval dungeon.

The number of new coronavirus cases nationwide has dropped in recent days, with 31 daily deaths reported on Monday, though officials said the number did not include reports from retirement homes during the Pentecost holiday weekend.

Officials have announced that care homes, which have seen heavy COVID-19 tolls, would again be allowed to receive visitors later this week, including young children.

"We're hoping the weather will stay good, because all we have are the terraces," said Petro Jaupi, owner of the Auberge de la Butte in the picturesque Butte aux Cailles neighbourhood of Paris.

"We also hope that clients will be confident enough to come back," he said.