No more munching, crunching, and slurping at the movies in France: The country’s tense fight against a record surge in coronavirus infections has halted all eating and drinking at French cinemas—just as the country shows signs of recovering from the brutal economic bashing of last year’s lockdowns.
God created humans with five senses: sight, smell, hearing, taste, and touch. Experiences using several of them can be among the most enjoyable. Now moviegoers in France may need to forego a couple of those senses at their local cinemas.
New COVID-19 measures kicked in on Monday. That means no more smelling popcorn and licking ice cream at French theaters. Everyone over the age of six is also expected to wear—and keep on—a face mask while in most public spaces. The snack ban of at least three weeks on public eating and drinking also applies to theaters, sports venues, and public transport—but not restaurants.
Cinema owners sold 96 million tickets in the eight months during which they were open last year. That’s a jump of 47% compared to 2020. However, ticket sales are still down 55% compared to 2019, before the pandemic. Theaters hoped to lure back movie fans, many of whom switched to home-viewing during the pandemic. But they’ll need to do so without candies, sodas, and other snacks.
Benoit Ciné Distribution, which supplies 70% of France’s cinemas with popcorn, sweet treats, and drinks, was swamped with both order postponements and delivery requests. That’s because movie houses were expecting good sales on the final weekend before the food and drink ban.
“It’s like being told to apply the emergency brake to the high-speed train,” says Vincent Meyer, a director at Benoit.
Why no snacks at some events, while other establishments can serve food? The French government hopes these latest measures will just tap the brakes on the fast-spreading omicron variant—without derailing France’s economic upturn. The country’s recovery is seen as a vote-getter for President Emmanuel Macron, who faces reelection in April.
In addition to the food and drink ban, there’ll once again be limits on crowd numbers at public venues, with no more than 2,000 allowed indoors and 5,000 outdoors.
Some musicians have suggested, only half-jokingly, that they may rebrand their concerts as political gatherings since the limits don’t apply to election campaign rallies.
With France’s COVID-19 death toll higher than ever and hospitals overburdened, many health experts have called for stricter measures than the government announced this week. Some are even pushing for closing schools and businesses again—a move everyone would love to avoid.
Michel Enten, manager of the Le Fontenelle cinema in a small town west of Paris, is relieved to stay open, even if he can’t sell food. He says he has lost about half his customers during the pandemic. He expects the food and drink ban to hit larger cinemas particularly hard. Much of their operating income is generated by those sales. But he thinks it may help lure back fans to smaller, arty cinemas like his.
“There are lots of people who hate hearing the sounds of popcorn in the auditoriums,” he says. “Perhaps we will win over new movie fans, people who . . . are saying to themselves, ‘Now there’s no more popcorn, let’s run to the cinema.’”
Some French cinemagoers say they understand the need for new measures. Others struggle to see any logic in not being able to indulge their sweet cravings in cinemas or theaters when restaurants are still allowed to serve food and drinks.
“It’s going to be strange to just go to the cinema and do without all these little moments,” Vincent Bourdais says while standing in line for a movie at Le Fontenelle cinema. “Often, when one imagines the cinema, one thinks of the auditorium, the beautiful posters, the popcorn, the smells.”
(A man wears a face mask as he walks in front of a restaurant in Saint Jean de Luz, southwestern France, on December 30, 2021. AP/Bob Edme)
