Paris's top restaurateurs vented their anger today as the French capital’s celebrated hospitality industry faced having to shut down to contain a surge in coronavirus infections.
Health minister Olivier Veran has already ordered bars and restaurants in Marseille to shut for two weeks and last night warned that Paris could be placed on “maximum alert” from Monday, meaning similar measures there.
Mr Veran said the wider Paris region had now passed all three of the government’s criteria for being put on the highest level of alert. Over the previous 24 hours, the infection rate rose above 250 cases for every 100,000 inhabitants.
“It is getting worse faster in Paris and its surrounds,” he told a news conference, pointing out that around a third of ICU beds in the Paris region were now occupied by virus patients.
He said the government and Paris City Hall would take another look at the indicators on Sunday and act if there was no improvement.
Responding to the warning, one of France’s top chefs urged fellow restaurant and bar owners and their staff to protest outside their businesses before today’s lunch service. “We will not die in silence,” Philippe Etchebest, a double Michelin-starred chef who frequently appears on TV cooking shows said.
“The government must understand that restaurants are not to blame for Covid,” Alain Fontaine, owner of Le Mesturet and president of the Association of Master Restaurateurs, said restaurants only accounted for two per cent of coronavirus clusters in France.
“We don’t understand why we’re being targeted,” he said. “It’s going a bit far.”
Meanwhile, New Zealanders will be able to travel to the Australian cities of Sydney and Darwin without having to self-quarantine from October 16.
But New Zealand will continue to insist on travellers from Australia going into hotel quarantine for two weeks on arrival. “We want to open up Australia to the world,” the country’s transport minister Michael McCormack said. “This is the first part of it.”
