France postpones the ban on heated terraces for bars and restaurants
The Minister of Ecological Transition Barbara Pompili confirmed that the ban on heated terraces will be postponed until winter 2021 to help the restaurants and bars businesses get back on their feet.
They finally won, in part, their battle.
After several weeks of calling out for it, restaurants and cafes in France will be able to continue to heat their terraces for a few more months. The Minister of Ecological Transition Barbara Pompili confirmed this during an interview with the Courrier Picard on Sunday, August 2.
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This was a major issue in disagreement between the government and the restaurant industry. The minister’s ecological convictions lead her to gradually seek to prohibit this practice, which she describes as an “ecological aberration”.
“A terrace equipped with five braziers produces as much CO2 during winter as a car that drives around the world three times. It’s absurd, and it costs a lot of money in energy,” she recalls in the Courrier Picard.
« On a un alignement de planètes en faveur de la transition écologique, on va pouvoir changer la vie des gens au quotidien et leur montrer qu’ils pourront être des acteurs de ce changement. »
— Barbara Pompili (@barbarapompili) August 2, 2020
➡️ Terrasses chauffées, chaudières fioul, plan de relance : interview @CourrierPicard pic.twitter.com/KN6uFrkbIX
Assisting restaurateurs to bounce back
If the end of winter 2020 was to mean the end of heated terraces, the recent health crisis has put the cards back on the table. The long weeks of lockdown have led most restaurants into a very tough economic situation. “I hear the difficulties of the bars and restaurants owners and that is why this regulation will not apply this winter, but next year. We will hold talks with them and support them in this transition,” says Barbara Pompili.
An actual relief for professionals in this branch. They hadn’t really appreciated the way the first decision had been made. They felt they had not been involved enough, with the government relying mainly on the advice of the Citizen’s Climate Convention. Yet this is a major aspect of their business. As the founder of the Food Service Vision consultancy François Blouin explains in Le Figaro, if they can no longer heat their terrace in winter, restaurant owners would lose between “5 and 10% of their annual income”.