It has been a disastrous summer for France’s restaurants. On average, visits have dropped by 20 per cent on previous years, but at many coastal resorts they’re down by 35 per cent. ‘Consumption is well below previous years,’ says Laurent Barthélémy, president of a hospitality union. ‘Restaurant owners see customers passing by, but they don’t come in to eat.’

Various reasons have been propounded to account for this decline. Barthélémy points to the cost-of-living crisis as a leading factor, as does Thierry Marx, one of France’s top chefs and president of the restaurant owners’ association. He describes a catch-22 situation where restaurants are obliged to raise their prices to cover ‘the cost of raw materials and the cost of staff’, but which deters the public.

In an interview earlier thi

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