"Free zone": restaurateurs show their refusal to control the sanitary pass

For this restaurateur from a town in eastern France, it was out of the question to control his own customers: he is “not their mother”. With or without a sanitary pass, therefore, everyone continues to be welcomed into his establishment, and the entry into force of the summer measures has not changed anything. It must be said that the irreducible innkeeper is not at his first attempt: during confinement, he continued to serve thirty to forty covers a day, as if nothing had happened…

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But here it is: against a background of growing protest, this refractory has a real marketing argument. And the customers of the troquet were not mistaken, who come in greater numbers than usual to sip the tasty taste of freedom with their cervoise. “People have known me for a long time,” he explains. They know that I am not in conformity... They tell each other, they talk about it, and the rumor spreads. Those who come to drink here today do so in part because they know I wouldn't bother them."

One of them adds all the same that the configuration of the premises also helps to take the risk of having a table there, even without a sanitary pass: overlooking a small courtyard, the tavern offers a comfortable "exit from help” in case the police come to make an impromptu visit. As for the risk of an administrative closure, the boss fears it but relativizes it somewhat: “With a summary-freedom, we can considerably reduce the time of closure; but in the end every day counts, and when I stay closed I don't have any money coming in”. So, if you have to go through it, there are always the old tricks. Like this one: you can scan the same QR code five times for five different customers. The application available to restaurateurs does not make the difference and the manager of the premises can always explain that he was fooled in the event that the patrol arrives.

As for the rest, the city assures Le Figaro that it is "not aware" of this initiative, and is nevertheless continuing to check the establishments in its territory subject to the obligation to check the health pass.

SEE ALSO - Lille: the sanitary pass makes its debut in restaurants

Pork Belly Adobo by Chef Leah Cohen https: //t.co/IST3LjRX1B

— Tasty Fri Jul 24 13:27:07 +0000 2020

"All welcome"

This restaurant which proclaims loud and clear its attachment to the "free zone" is not the only one; and to encourage disobedience, a movement has even been born on social networks, offering recalcitrants to lure unvaccinated customers with a discreet little green button distributed to anyone who requests it. "Here, we respect your freedom, your dignity and medical secrecy" can we read there, in the middle of a slogan, "all welcome", which forms a funny counterfeit of the famous "come as you are" of a well-known fast-food brand.

Originally, however, the initiative was not so insolent as that: "I had the intuition that a positive message was needed to counterbalance the gloom of Emmanuel Macron's announcements", confides the instigator of the movement. The day after the introduction of the health pass, he then offered to those of the merchants in his district who were not subject to the obligation to check the pass to display the little green badge, to remind customers that it remained " some spaces of freedom”. “It was a way of uniting behind a joyful message, but I didn't have in mind to launch a movement of civil disobedience,” he adds.

Appetite comes with eating. While the sticker was a great success, it was quickly requested by restaurateurs (“twenty in a few days”) who already imagined making it the emblem of their refusal to apply the instructions. And harmless as it was, here is the little green button that has become, in spite of itself, a dissident symbol.

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The problem is that being visible is a double-edged sword. Just as the idea, a time imagined by the collective, to constitute a directory of refractory establishments, is still at a standstill. And if he "is careful not to communicate the names and addresses of the restaurateurs" who have asked him for macaroons, the founder of "Zone libre" therefore admits that reconciling the desire to publicize these establishments, while preserving them from control unpleasant administrative staff, is a funny balancing act. Although not all the restaurants concerned have the same concern for discretion: some do not even hesitate to communicate with the local press, as here with our colleagues from La Dépêche.

For the more cautious, the little green circle nevertheless remains hidden in the cash drawer, and we only take it out discreetly, for a few photos with customers in collusion. Many of the rest recognize it: if you want to receive unvaccinated customers without attracting too much attention, the surest way is to rely on word of mouth. Message received five out of five for many subscribers to the Facebook page of the "Zone libre" movement, who only publish very vague information ("Zone Libre à [...] chez un restaurateur courageous") and then only communicate the good addresses only by private message.