Plea to preserve the pavement cafes of Paris
BELOVED by authors, philosophers and artists alike, the bistros and pavement cafés of Paris are seeking Unesco world heritage status as unique “intellectual and artistic melting pots”.
Bastions of Parisian art de vivre, bistros have also become symbols of defiance to terrorism, which targeted their easy-going, open-minded spirit in 2015 but failed to break it.
Alain Fontaine, a bistro owner who heads the association pitching for heritage status, said that after the attacks, “Parisians crowded onto the terraces… to show that they regarded them as places of cultural cross-fertilisation, of freedom and of the art of living.”
With their trademark zinc counters, bistros have been immortalised in countless films, from Amelie to Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris. The oldest in Paris, the 17th-century Procope, is still standing. Bistros have also served as a refuge for painters and writers such as Boris Vian, Jean-paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir. Indeed, the French capital only remains a “movable feast”, as Ernest Hemingway put it, “because its bistros and cafes exist”.
Mr Fontaine’s campaign website states: “Before Mark Zuckerberg, the first social network was the bistro of Paris.” But he fears bistro culture is under threat – there are fewer than 2,000 bistros remaining in the capital, about half the number it had 20 years ago.
“For the past 10 years, we have been losing ground to fast food joints, exotic restaurants and sandwich sellers, and they take with them an art de vivre, a sense of sharing and an ethnic, religious and social mix,” said Mr Fontaine.
Tourists would lose out, he said, as “they don’t only come to see the Eiffel Tower or the Louvre; they come to meet the people of Paris on our terraces”.
Bistros often open from 7am to 11pm, meaning family-run businesses are hard to keep going. “Very few want to take on their parents’ bistro,” he lamented. “But if we’re inscribed as Unesco world heritage treasures, they might stay in our bistros, take them over, and save them.”
Competition for the coveted status is fierce in France, which can only field one proposal every two years.
Among the candidates this time round are the French baguette and the capital’s beloved booksellers, known as bouquinistes, whose green stalls line the Seine and make up the world’s largest open-air bookshop.
The booksellers have received tacit approval from the town hall, but the culture ministry will have the final say.