Compulsory test for everyone in nightclubs: a “red line” for the sector

It is a sector in crisis and angry. Employer organizations in the hotel and catering industry fear that the government will demand “a compulsory test for all”, including those vaccinated, when nightclubs reopen, while the executive could announce new measures to deal with a meteoric surge of the new variant of Covid-19. Clubs and discos have been closed since December 9 and until January 6, which represents a “new injustice” consider these unions including Umih, the main union in the sector and its “night”, “prestige” and “bowling” branches , GNC (hotel chains) or even SNEG & Co (gay companies), in a press release Monday, December 27.

However “the track envisaged by the government of a compulsory test for all, even vaccinated” to reopen these establishments at night, “is a red line for our sector”, affirm these organizations, which assimilate such a “systematic test, even free , for young people triply vaccinated “, to a” huge brake “on resumption of activity.

Explosion of contaminations

“Our establishments cannot open with barely 15 to 30% of our customers: beyond the lack of atmosphere to make our establishments attractive, the nightclub manager could not find his way economically and the image given would be harmful for the future of our establishments “, plead these organizations. They would prefer that customers be required “a compulsory test before entering (the) night establishments, if and only if the last vaccine or the last Covid infection dates back more than six months”.

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“Below six months, it would be a condemnation of our establishments,” they say. At four days before the New Year, the government could make announcements in the early evening, after the holding at the end of the afternoon of a Health Defense Council dedicated to Covid-19 and then an exceptional Council of Ministers which must adopt the bill establishing the vaccination pass.

The question of new restrictions, already adopted by several neighboring countries, arises, as the number of contaminations explodes, spiked in particular by the Omicron variant of Covid-19. More than 100,000 new cases were recorded on Saturday in France, a record since the start of the pandemic, and the incidence rate exceeds 700 cases per 100,000 inhabitants nationally. A particularly high number of people have been tested these days during this holiday season.