French cafe culture

French cafe culture struggles to stay alive

August 15, 2009 by Infowars Ireland

www.dw-world.de

Sitting in a cafe in France is part of every tourist cliche. But with locals doing that less and less and the number of cafes dwindling at a rapid pace, is French cafe culture in danger of dying out?

In 1960, there were about 200,000 cafes across France. Fifty years later, there are only around 40,000 left and, according to industry statistics, two cafes go out of business every day.

On a sunny day in Paris, everything still appears normal. At Le Grand Palais, a cafe in Paris’s swanky eighth district, the terraces are full with tourists sipping lemonade, office types having lunch, and people sitting quietly on their own, reading as they take in the warm weather.

Across town at Le Belair in the Belleville neighborhood of Paris, though, there’s a much different scene. Just before lunch, there are only two customers at the bar. It’s the kind of sparsely-decorated one-room cafe with a bar that can be found in working-class neighborhoods all around the country. Owner Zahir Idris says business is extremely slow these days./.../