Our Blog - Coronavirus Mini-Lockdown

We were hoping all of this COVID-19 "stuff" would go away, but it just doesn't seem to be going away. Things seemed to be going okay through the summer but then with La Rentrée (which is when everybody "returns" from their summer vacations and go back to work/school), more people were back in town and resumed their normal lives. Unfortunately, normal lives are not really helpful in getting rid of the virus and the number of new cases and hospitalizations started to rise. The more people went out and socialized, the higher the numbers went.

Then near the end of September, Toulouse went under "alert renforcé" or "enhanced alert" status. Under this status, bars and pubs had to close at 10pm, parties were prohibited, and gyms were closed for 15 days. Ugh ... Tom had just moved from his previous gym to a new gym (my gym) which is closer to the apartment. After only a week or so at the new gym, it was closed. I guess it wouldn't have mattered too much, as his previous gym was also closed.

We then decided to take a week-long trip to Burgundy (blogs are in process). Just as we left for the vacation, a set of gym directors took the closure to court and actually won! In fact, there was a single lawyer who coordinated multiple lawsuits. Gyms in the cities of Rennes and Toulouse were able to re-open while the majority of the cases were rejected. We returned from our vacation and had a couple days of workouts before .... the "mini lockdown".

Then on the 13th of October, Toulouse moved from "alert renforcé" to "alert maximale". This means the total closure of bars and pubs, closure (again) of gyms, additional limitations on the the number of people allowed in inside spaces (shopping malls, restaurants, stores), and prohibiting large events. Okay, so other than gyms being closed, no huge impacts for us.

Unfortunately, that didn't last long either. Only a few days later, a curfew from 9pm to 6am was announced for Toulouse and the suburbs (as well as eight other cities in France). An attestation is again available for one of a handful of "valid" reasons for being out during the curfew times .... needing medical care, caring for a dependent family member, people who are returning home after work (for example, store/restaurant closes at 9pm, the employees would be going home after that), traveling by plane/train that has an arrival/departure time such that you would be in transit during the curfew, and taking out your pets for their "business". So ... this one is a bit more difficult. We normally eat dinner out a couple times a week and most restaurants start serving dinner around 8pm. Having dinner and getting home in an hour is a bit difficult. Some restaurants are just closing altogether, others are moving to take-out only. We read an article today that discussed this, and a set of them are shifting their hours to start serving at 6 or 6:30pm, although the owners are not sure that their clients will shift their eating habits. One of our favorite restaurants has gone to serving lunch 7 days a week but only lunch (no dinners).

What does this mean for us? We plan to shift our eating habits to eating out for lunch more often at restaurants, making it a larger lunch. Then we'll have something smaller (lunch-sized) for dinner. We plan to try to go more often to a small handful of small restaurants, especially those that are heavily impacted by the lack of a dinner service. There are a few restaurants that are lunch-only anyway, so for them, there isn't much of a change. We are looking at a few short trips (2-3 days) nearby to places outside of Toulouse that aren't under a curfew. We may still go to the movies, but they will just be starting earlier. We may still go to a concert, but they will start earlier.

Just a couple days ago (Friday, October 16th), an administrative court gave an interim injunction against the bar/pub closure, stating that bars can now reopen. The argument was that it was illogical that a restaurant could serve their clients while the bar next door could not, purely based on the fact that one was serving food. The argument was that a bar should be able to follow the exact same rules/regulations as a restaurant. Bars still have to comply with the 9pm - 6am curfew, just like restaurants, but they at least can reopen. For us ... this is really no change since we don't really go to bars and pubs anyway. It would be great if gyms could reopen, but unfortunately, they can't make the same argument as the bar could (comparing the bar to a restaurant, which could remain open).

I thought I was done with this blog, and had Tom review it (which I do all the time). He found yet another article, dated yesterday (Saturday, October 17th), that says that bars must be closed even though they had previously gotten an interim injunction (my terms, not the French terms) from the administrative tribunal. The rationale, if I read correctly, is that the curfew and additional restrictions were placed on Toulouse by the national government, not the local government. So maybe that means the administrative tribunal that had ruled the other day doesn't have the power to undo it? I'm not sure, but it seems that bars are back being closed. Mind you, this is a point-in-time statement, since as you can tell from this blog, it is every-changing.

So ... life goes on, slightly different than it was before. Luckily, we are only slightly impacted personally, and we will try to shift our habits slightly to help out those small business that we tend to go to often.