Even before the phased end to lockdown was announced on 11 May, the severe restrictions in France had been loosening. The true day of “liberation” came, however, on Tuesday 2 June: this was when after 11 long weeks with their shutters down, all cafés, bars and restaurants were officially allowed to reopen. But Paris remains under special scrutiny from the authorities. According to the government information, the epidemic was “under control”, but this didn’t mean that there weren’t clusters of the virus in circulation, particularly in the poorer parts of the city. As a result, although you could sit at an outside café table in Paris, you couldn’t eat or drink inside until 22 June.
When the lockdown finally ended, it seemed like a small miracle, after so many dead and empty weeks, to see people at café tables, inside or outside, drinking, gossiping, arguing, having a fag, or simply reading a newspaper. During a quick afternoon tour of my neighbourhood, I could easily make out the faces and profiles of local boozers and petty villains in the interior gloom of backstreet bars, happy to be back in their natural habitat.
Content from our partners
