Deprived of reopening on June 30, 2021 by the Constitutional Council, nightclubs do not see the end of the tunnel. (Here that of Bisous Bisous, Club du Palais des Festivals in Cannes) – SYSPEO / SIPA
It’s not looking good to go shake your booty by candlelight in Trébeurden this summer. The Council of State did not approve this Friday the reopening of nightclubs by June 30. The Union of Trades and Hospitality Industries (Umih) and the National Union of Discotheques and Leisure Places (SNDLL) demanded in particular that nightclubs, deprived of a date of reopening, be integrated “urgently” to the government’s deconfinement plan.
Their requests “are rejected”, ruled the highest administrative court, estimating that “the maintenance of the closure […] and the existence of a traffic ban between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m. as of May 19, 2021 do not appear disproportionate ”in view of the country’s health situation.
“A serious infringement of certain fundamental freedoms”
“The prolonged closure, since March 14, 2020, of discotheques and nightclubs, seriously undermines certain fundamental freedoms […] and presents for the sector and individually for each of the interested parties major consequences, financial as well as human ”, recognized the judges. But “the epidemiological situation on the metropolitan territory remains worrying”, they added, noting a “risk inherent in the activity which is practiced in the night establishments, which are closed spaces, including close physical contacts”.
The nightclub operators had pleaded their case Wednesday before the Council of State, the day when restaurants and bars reopened their terraces, places where contagions are considered much less likely than indoors. And while test concerts will take place at the end of May and weddings will resume with gauges and a curfew at 9 p.m. on June 9, then freely from June 30, the operators of night establishments consider themselves victims of “discrimination”, also pointing that swinging clubs, registered as restaurants, could soon reopen with a gauge.
Already 152 nightclubs permanently closed
The Council of State specified Friday that the authorization “of concerts welcoming more than 5,000 people, gatherings of more than 1,000 people, wedding parties or even bars with musical atmosphere” are at this stage only announcements. If their application was confirmed by the executive, “it would be up to the government […] to ensure the consistency of its risk assessment, ”warned the administrative judges.
Nightclub operators may not be set by the government until June 15, or even the end of June, when they will reopen. Out of 1,600 nightclubs in France, 152 had closed permanently at the end of March 2021, according to Umih.