With no service inside, and tables on terraces spaced at a safe distance, the French came back together, while remaining apart.

By Adam Nossiter New York Times

PARIS — Nothing during the 11-week coronavirus lockdown could replace the ritual: a table in the sun with a tiny cup of black coffee on it. On Tuesday, Parisians rediscovered their favorite moment of sociability — coming together, while remaining apart.

Cafes throughout France were allowed to reopen and the relief was universal, if dispersed.

Many kept tables resolutely piled indoors. In Paris, still officially classified as a virus risk zone, cafes were not allowed to serve inside. No downing the petit noir — the little cup of coffee — at the bar. On the outdoor terraces that didopen, tables had to be three feet apart. And they were not overflowing with customers. This liberation is too new.

Still, Tuesday brought a welcome hint of the life before. From luxurious carriage-trade establishments like the mirrored Left Bank Café de Floreto everybody’s grimy neighborhood “zinc” (argot for bar), Paris reconnected Tuesday with a key element of its urban life.

Parisians could once again sit down with one another, separately. They could be convivial without getting too close to one another, a French ideal. They could be in roughly the same space together, without ever having to talk to one another (only tourists talk across neighboring tables to strangers, a strict Parisian no-no). They could linger for hours if they needed to: the essential difference between the French cafe and its trans-Atlantic cousin.

On a brilliant spring day, the moment could be savored, even if with reserve, restraint and logic.

“It’s obviously the most important turning point for returning to true Parisian life,” said Michel Wattebault.

A retired employee of the nearby Bank of France, he was sitting at one of the handful of outdoor tables at L’Avant-Première, just behind the Palais Royal. “We’ve been waiting for this moment with impatience,” said his friend, Amélie Juste-Thomas, a translator.

It helped that, with the total absence of tourists, the street was as “quiet as a Sunday in August,” Ms. Juste-Thomas said.

Behind them, lingering over his coffee in the sunshine, sat a curator from the grand establishment across the Rue des Petits-Champs, the National Heritage Institute. Farhad Kazemi was planning to find another outdoor terrace at noon, for lunch. It was only about an hour away.

Read the full story

Don’t miss stories like this Click for free EnviroPolitics Blog updates