
The French cafe is dying - pg
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/23/world/europe/23cafe.html?em=&pagewanted=all
======
jgrahamc
I'm surprised by this article. I live in Toulouse, France and quite the
opposite appears to be happening. Almost all of the run down cafés in the
centre of Toulouse have undergone extensive refits in the last year and are
now packed.

The article does make me wonder to what extent these bar owners are failing to
update their run down bars and hence they are losing their clientele. My
experience of the French is that they do love to complain about things not
being like they used to be, perhaps these people should look to Toulouse as an
example.

~~~
ecuzzillo
It may be that refits require loans, and loans are hard to get now; moreover,
the article may have been talking more about cafes in smaller, less busy
towns, which banks may be less willing to lend to.

~~~
corentin
It has nothing to do with loans. Over the past few years, the French
government has banned smoking in public places and virtually banned drinking
as well. If you can't smoke nor drink, what's the point of going to such a
place?

~~~
davidw
Being with other people?

What have they done about drinking? Italy banned smoking, but not drinking.
Austria has yet to ban much of anything anywhere, and thus it's impossible for
my wife and 6 month old daughter to go out for coffee and cake with friends in
a pastry shop and not come home reeking of cigarette smoke, which is pretty
gross (babies should not smell like smoke).

~~~
corentin
> What have they done about drinking?

You just can't drink and drive any more. I'm not saying it like it's a bad
thing, but it explains why people don't go to bars after work as much as they
did before.

Regarding smoking bans, I think owners should be free to decide if they want
to accept or ban smoking inside their property. You'll have family-friendly
places with no cigarette smoke, and adult-friendly places with no loud babies;
everybody would be happy!

~~~
davidw
> You'll have family-friendly places with no cigarette smoke, and adult-
> friendly places with no loud babies; everybody would be happy!

Well, except you don't. Owners are free to decide here in Austria, and people
smoke _everywhere_. We have located three places that are smoke-free here in
Innsbruck: Ikea, McDonalds, and Burger King. People who are ordinarily very
polite, always stopping at cross-walks and such, think nothing of lighting up
in front of a pregnant woman or a baby.

I think this is one of the most interesting solutions I've seen to the smoking
problem:

[http://oxonomics.typepad.com/oxonomics/2008/02/the-
economcs-...](http://oxonomics.typepad.com/oxonomics/2008/02/the-economcs-
of.html)

Which would be more likely to create the outcome you cite than either a
blanket ban, or no rules at all.

------
markessien
This is not about the economic crisis in any way. The magazine just put that
in to get a bit of the feeling of this being something related to now.

This is about a culture of young people that is changing. I spent a lot of
time in Paris during the summers, and the young french people are no longer
really Cafe people. When you think Cafe, you think of sitting down to relax
and socialize and talk, but nowadays, who does that anymore?

The cafes are run by unfirable waiters who are no fun. The french cafe
business seems the same as it always has been, but times them are changing.
The business needs to adapt to the changes, and it's not really doing so.

The Cafes in Berlin are WAY more comfortable to chill out at than the french
Cafes, because they offer a bit more than just a wooden table and a cup of
coffee.

And of course, the internet means that you don't need to meet people to catch-
up anymore, you can just send them a message.

Cafes are not entertainment for young people anymore. They need to bring back
the entertainment factor.

------
Angostura
This is tragic, one of the delights of travelling in France was you could stop
off in any small village, walk in to what looked like a café-bar and get the
most amazing tasting simple food - an omlette that would make you go "wow".

------
KevinBongart
I live in Paris and I love these cafés, there are everywhere, you never have
to remember a place like you would do with a restaurant. It's only about
sitting at a table with friends, drinking a very regular coffee...

About privatization, I was surprised that in Manhattan, there isn't any Café,
only Starbucks coffees, on every corner. I guess Paris' cafés will change the
same way.

~~~
fharper1961
Paris, and the Parisian life-style are very different from the rest of France.
The article was more about cafés in small towns/villages. I don't think
parisians are going to replace their cafés by Starbucks within the next 20 or
30 years.

------
sridharvembu
_Disclaimer: I don't know anything about France_

This is a response to PG's comment about social, behavioral change. It is
worth understanding the fundamental economic underpinning of this.

Two observations or assertions: a) People have more debt than a generation ago
b) People have less leisure today than a generation ago.

These two assertions seem broadly true world-wide. As an example, young people
can observe how many of their college-educated peers are graduating with
excessive levels of debt. These two are connected - in fact, I believe (a)
causes (b), to the extent that you can determine causation in social science.

Now who caused (a) i.e the culture of debt? Answer: Government policy, in
particular central bank policy. Ultimately, money is credit in a fiat system,
so when we talk about "Fed creating money out of thin air", they are really
creating credit (i.e debt instruments) out of thin air. Eventually, cascading
layers of debt entraps most of the population - corporations and individuals
alike.

Debt causes serious cultural and social changes. Keynes had this right:

 _There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of
society than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden
forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner
which not one man in a million is able to diagnose._

------
brk
Perhaps I'm missing something. How does the state of cafe's in France even
remotely relate to Hacker News?

~~~
pg
What I found interesting about it is that it shows the increasing tendency
toward social fragmentation is even affecting France. Robert Putnam noticed
this change in 1995 (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowling_Alone>). Networks
will make the problem (or at least the trend) much worse. My wife and I have a
couple friends staying with us at the moment, and it's striking how often all
4 of us are simultaneously sitting using laptops.

Historically this is quite a big change. The last social changes on this scale
were probably the ones caused by cars. Though indeed this is partially caused
by cars too.

~~~
jgrahamc
I don't wish to criticize you or your friends, but this is similar to the
problem of having multiple TVs in a house. The only solution to this problem
is to put the computers away and talk to each other.

In my house we have computers in an office, we have a TV in one room, but we
have strict hours for the TV for the kids, we all eat meals together with no
books, TV or computers allowed.

BTW I think it would be more healthy if the four of you sat in front of one TV
and watched a program together (especially if you laughed at it, talked about
it).

~~~
ivankirigin
I don't think it is exactly like TV. You aren't talking to the TV. You are
actually 'talking' when online, just not with your mouth.

My son often asks to 'do letters' on <http://starfall.com>

I was fixing a bug the other day, and when I said we couldn't do letters, he
assertively said "close computer!"

Pretty insightful for a 21 month old.

~~~
icky
If he's programming before he's potty-trained, it's all your fault. ;)

~~~
ivankirigin
He has taken a remarkable interest in robots, so it's a pretty close race at
this point.

------
dangrover
That's a shame, particularly if this effect becomes pronounced elsewhere.

There's been a lot written about the psychological/sociological role of places
like cafes and bars: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Third_Place>

------
lpgauth
What about the ban on smoking that happened two years ago? Couldn't that also
be part of the problem?

~~~
bdr
Yes. That's mentioned in the article.

------
DaniFong
This shall be a much lonelier depression than the last one, and all thanks to
our electronic distractions. It is sad.

~~~
Alex3917
Not necessarily. Social isolation is caused largely by the privatization of
social objects. E.g., when everyone can afford their own barbecue they no
longer need to go to the country club or town park to make dinner. If people
have less money then theoretically there should be more demand for social
objects to be socialized. In practice though even if a society shifts from
being more gesellschaft to being more gemeinschaft, there are a few different
forms this can take, not all of which would ameliorate the problem.

~~~
JoelSutherland
Good article on the subject:

[http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2008/11/16/...](http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2008/11/16/depression_2009_what_would_it_look_like/?page=full)

------
Prrometheus
Good God, the smoking nannies have got to France, too!

------
laut
All cafés won't die. But no surprise if the redundant, dark, sad ones that
serve bad coffee, do.

------
thomasfl
In Norway most cafés actually got more visitors after smoking was banned. Even
the smokers themselves preferred the clean air.

This article about the poor French café's is just plain nonsense.

------
nraynaud
Yeah, French culture of complaining at the bar in the NYT !

Our culture is spreading in the USA !

~~~
icky
No, thank you!

You can take your good food and functional health-care system _elsewhere!_

~~~
corentin
Yes, as we all know it's the best health-care system that will ever be devised
in the whole universe for the centuries to come. The only (minor) problem is
that's it's _slightly_ expensive (can you spot France on this graph?
<http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotisations_sociales> )

Actually, it's so good a system that a lot of young qualified workers like me
left this paradise to work abroad, just to spread the word and tell other
countries how wonderful it is!

You're right about the food, though.

