VSike 1000’s of institutions in France, the café Victor Hugo, place des Vosges in Paris, tries to protect a small a part of its turnover with the take-out sale. This Sunday, February 7, round four p.m., the police observed the presence of 22 clients, who had been consuming mulled wine or sizzling chocolate outdoors, a few of them sheltered beneath the arcades of the road.
The law enforcement officials who draw up the report imagine that the purchasers are on the “terrace” of the café – which has been repacked for months – the onlookers are literally in public area. Above all, they notice, they aren’t sporting their masks (anybody who has ever tried to drink sizzling chocolate via the tissue protecting their mouth can simply perceive the complexity of the maneuver). Extra goal criterion: clients don’t respect social distancing, assault the police. Consequence: fifteen days of administrative closure.
No formal discover, no closure
The bosses of the commerce instantly determine to assault in abstract the order of the prefect of police earlier than the Paris administrative court. Such a closure would deprive them of state help to remunerate their ten staff, and put the monetary stability of the construction in danger within the brief time period. Café Victor Hugo swears to have revered the principles in pressure: no buyer was inside, click on and acquire is allowed day by day till curfew at 6 p.m.
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The executive courtroom will lastly determine to droop the contested decree. In response to the regulation, Didier Lallement ought to certainly have, earlier than announcing the closure, difficulty a primary formal discover. Nonetheless, the prefect of police took some liberties with the regulation, thus justifying his resolution: “Given the gravity of the scenario, which immediately impacts human life, it’s for the competent police authority to take, with a view to safeguard the well being of the inhabitants, all acceptable measures, together with with out prior discover. “
“Within the identify of the Covid, eating places are being prevented from working”
“Within the identify of the Covid, we forestall eating places from working, we continuously management them, we free ourselves from the adversarial process earlier than sanctioning them, we deprive them of listening to earlier than the decide [la procédure se fait par écrit, NDLR], reacts Me Henri de Beauregard, lawyer at Café Hugo. Now, within the identify of the Covid, the prefecture even frees itself from the measures set … to cope with the Covid! Montesquieu mentioned that “any authority which has energy is inclined to abuse it, it goes till it finds a restrict”. The well being disaster is conducive to those abuses. He’s completely satisfied that the decide units a restrict. “
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When contacted, the Paris Police Prefecture (PP) defends its motion: “The managers of institutions open to the general public which are the topic of administrative closure procedures have the potential for contesting them earlier than the executive courtroom. The overwhelming majority of abstract proceedings difficult the closure earlier than this physique had been rejected, confirming the deserves of the closures pronounced by the prefect of police. “As of February 11, specifies the PP, 256 momentary administrative closures, which involved 95 eating places, had been ordered because the starting of the yr.
For cafetiers and restaurateurs, the stakes are excessive: an administrative sanction measure, resembling a brief closure, can situation the allocation or not of public help in instances of well being disaster.
