PARIS (AP) – Champagne, lobster and no masks: this is what a French TV documentary says on the menu in one of the many luxury “clandestine restaurants” that cater to the elite of Paris, in violation of nationwide pandemic restrictions.
What’s even more shocking to the newly restricted French public – and exhausted medical staff – is that one organizer claims that government ministers are among those who attend it.
French authorities are investigating the allegations, and government members have scrambled to insist they act properly.
President Emmanuel Macron’s anti-capitalist activists and critics are not convinced and are planning a protest action on Tuesday – advertised on social media under the banner “Let’s Eat the Rich” – in one of the alleged secret places,
The Paris prosecutor’s office said on Monday that an investigation had been opened on Sunday into possible charges of intimidation and black labor and to identify the organizers and participants in the alleged rallies.
A documentary aired on the French network M6 this past weekend included a man who said he had eaten in two or three secret restaurants ‘with a certain number of ministers’.
The prosecutor’s office said on Monday that the investigation was continuing despite reports that the man who appeared in the documentary had withdrawn his claim.
Government members deny the knowledge of any transgression by their colleagues. Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin has asked police to investigate the claims.
M6 has been broadcasting hidden camera footage coming from two different private venues over the past few weeks, while a new virus surge has swept across France. and restrictions tightened.
In one place, glasses with gloves offered fixed price menus ranging from 160 to 490 euros (about $ 190 to $ 575) per person, with champagne, truffles with foie gras and lobster in ginger sauce. One host said that despite France’s indoor mask requirements, guests do not wear masks because it is a private club. We want people to feel at home. ”
At another venue, which reportedly offered a 220-euro ($ 260) meal, visitors in elegant dress shared cheek kisses and walked a red carpet.
French restaurants have been closed since October to slow the spread of the coronavirus, and the country has just begun a new partial exclusion in response to the intensive care units that were once again full of COVID-19 patients..
‘I’m getting sick of this. There is no point in going to work, ”says Michele Feret, a nurse who provides home care to virus patients in the city of Creil, north of Paris. She noted that a clandestine restaurant in a working-class district of Creil was also recently closed.
“Let them go to restaurants,” she told The Associated Press, but warned that no one, including top officials, had “special protection” against the virus.
Government spokesman Gabriel Attal said ministers “have a duty to be completely impeccable and exemplary.” Attal spoke on LCI television Sunday night, saying authorities had been investigating reports of underground parties and restaurants for months, and 200 suspects had been identified and facing ‘heavy punishment’.
Asked by the AP last month how many government officials had been fined for violating virus restrictions, Prime Minister Jean Castex refused to give an explanation, but listed the number of fines issued to the general French public.
For those caught, the cost of intimidation carries a potential prison sentence and fines of 15,000 euros ($ 17,600), while participants are fined 135 euros ($ 160) for violating the curfew and another 135 euros for not wearing masks.
The restaurant’s revelations come when the French health minister warned on Monday that the number of COVID-19 patients in the country’s intensive care units could reach the level of the first crisis a year ago.
France reported more viral infections than any European country, and among the highest death toll in the world, at 96,650.
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