European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - December 17, 1992, Darmstadt, Hesse French bid Adieu a to their by Rone tempest los Angeles times la Wax Only Small run Down parisian Cate wedged Between Llu Gigli Glass facades of fashion boutiques on the Avenue montaigne. Hul in was the i isl Cate in Llu neighbourhood the list warm Smoky Retreat where Oilin workers and local residents could go to lean the i amp tour Down a Short hitter cup of Coffee and Trade insults with the . So when the Les essays closed Down a Lew months ago to he replaced by yet another trendy impossibly expensive High is lion boutique the Cole regulars Weie suddenly set adrift anchoress in a cold and hostile world. Quot i i Elt orphaned empty said Gislaine Pinatell 41 a fashion journalist who works on the Avenue montaigne. Quot i spent my life in that cafe. I was there every morning Lor my first Coffee Back at 11 for another cup and at noon to eat a Sandwich or have lunch i was there to see people. A Good cafe is like a Village a a Village where you have a family at the Corner cafe Habi tues Are going into similar withdrawal All Over f Ranee. The neighbourhood cafe one of France s most important cultural and social institutions is rapidly disappearing from the country s cities and villages the victim to describe the demise in its broadest terms of refrigeration television and the hamburger. In i960, there were 200,000 licensed cafes in Fram e. 1 his year according to an estimate by cafe owner Robert Henry the colourful president of the National Union of restaurant cafe and hotel owners the number has dropped to fewer than 60,000. Quot each time a cafe disappears Quot said i Lenry 7 i serving a visitor a hot rum to help soothe a Chest cold Quot a Little in the Lile of tilt1 neighbourhood goes with in Par is and the major cities the disappear Aiu e a been Lort de by rising real estate prices and tile Montri Licarion of former working i lass neighbourhoods. I lie glue smoke of cigarettes and tin1 Huv voir e of i Hanneuse Faith Piai have Heen pushed out he couture boutiques and Chain Sandwich shops. As France s Rural population Ages and disappears so do its cafes. At the end of world War ii More than 30 percent of the French population still lived in Rural areas by 1000, the Rural population had dropped to less than 6 percent. Towns that of e boasted several cafes suddenly Louill themselves unable to support even one. Desperate to retain at least one cafe often the Only communal gathering place in town some villages have taken the Radical step of purchasing and operating cafes with Public Money. Quot a Cate is part of the like of the Countryside explained 1 Ouis Coigny mayor of tin1 tiny Village of Poil 2 i 5 inhabitants in the Lievre Region of Central France. A few years ago Poil bought a local bakery shop and converted it into a cafe for its citizens Quot it s a meeting place Quot Coigny continued. Quot it s a place when someone who wants to sell a dog or a cow can put up notice. Imagine if we had a funeral service. After the burial the custom is for everyone to go to the cafe and Clink glasses. What would we do if we did t have a cafe everyone would go Back Home. There would be no in the bigger cities surviving cafe owners have attempted to fight the decline of the cafe by sponsoring educational reforms to attract More qualified economically Sawy Young people to the business. Since 1900, French technical High schools have offered two year degrees in Cate Brasserie management. The cafe owners try to put a Brave face on the decline. But they feel assaulted on All sides a by the american style fast food restaurants that have captured the Best Corners in the cities by changing drinking habits that mean More French prefer to take their aperitifs at Home in front of the television set and by a new smoking Law in effect nov. I that requires All cafes in France to create smoking and nonsmoking set Lions. Many of the smaller t ales Are not lug enough to subdivide along smoking lines. The French cafe without its permanent hovering t loud of smoke and carpet of discarded Butts so annoy my to v visiting americans Long at t us Lomed to smoking segregation is Prat tie ally unimaginable. Quot it is not a pretty picture these Days Quot said Henry who remembers doing his Homework at the Zinc bar of his father s cafe. Quot but we Haven t Given up Hope. People still need us. We know that we still have a social role to play a to relax the Public let them Exchange ideas and give them a different climate than that of their apartment or factory Quot certainly some Cates will remain. Henry estimates that As Many As 50,000 a mainly bigger better managed cafes such As his cafe a Petit Doucet on the place let Clichy in Paris a will survive. But the great French cafe age stretching Back us years to the Days when the 18th-Century writer and philosopher Voltaire used to take his Coffee at the Felt rank s cafe Procope is clearly Over. 1 the cafe Procope still in existence is now an expensive restaurant that is owned by a National Chain. The Smoky retreats from the rain and the cold where the owners know the names of All their regular clients and those of their children Are disappearing. So Are the Small bistros with the rickety round tables where would be writers can compose All afternoon for the Price of a cup of espresso about 95 cents at the current Exchange rate. When the last of the neighbourhood cafes is gone France will have lost an important part of its soul. Quot is like health Quot said Fleury. Quot people Don t miss it until they Don t have it in 1946, when the poet Leon Paul Fargue wrote his classic Book on cafe life poisons the end of the Cate age would have been impossible to imagine. Fargue fervently believed that Quot one could write a history of civilization by restricting one s study to a study of Quot All i need to say Quot he wrote Quot is that the Cate o no doubt the soundest of French institutions. It stands Ault 1 trom political upheavals government turmoil and popular tumult and no revolution has Ever been Ahe o Rock its but Fargue had no Way of predicting the huge Pom. A changes in store for French society including the 4 of such innovations As refrigeration the Persona automobile and suburban supermarkets Selling a a a liquor. 14 stripes Maga Piile december 17, tit 2 a Good cafe is like a Village a Village where Yon have a family at the Corner cafe so is photos by Mike Abrams my a solitary woman has a cup of Coffee on the Rue Mouffe Tard left while a cafe on the place do Tetre above draws a larger crowd. Fouquet a a Well known restaurant is located on the champs Elysee. December 17, vm2 stripes Magazine 15
