{"id":1158,"date":"2008-12-08T06:16:04","date_gmt":"2008-12-08T13:16:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/2008\/12\/cafe-du-mort\/"},"modified":"2008-12-08T06:16:42","modified_gmt":"2008-12-08T13:16:42","slug":"cafe-du-mort","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/2008\/12\/08\/cafe-du-mort\/","title":{"rendered":"Cafe du Mort"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"Apple-style-span\" style=\"font-style: italic\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/world\/2008\/dec\/07\/cafe-closures-village-rural-france\" target=\"_blank\">from The Guardian UK<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<h1>France fears death of village life as caf\u00e9s call last orders<\/h1>\n<h2>Threatened by new habits and a shrinking rural population, a national institution is fighting for survival<\/h2>\n<ul class=\"article-attributes multi-pub\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse; background-repeat: no-repeat; margin-right: 0px; margin-left: 0px; list-style-type: none; padding-right: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-top-width: 1px; border-top-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: solid; font-size: 0.86em; line-height: 1.25; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1px; padding-top: 2px; padding-bottom: 2px; position: relative; overflow-x: hidden; overflow-y: hidden; min-height: 58px; border-color: #d61d00\">\n<li class=\"byline\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse; background-repeat: no-repeat; overflow-x: hidden; overflow-y: hidden; font-weight: normal; display: block; border-color: #999999; padding: 0px; margin: 0px\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/profile\/jasonburke\" name=\"&amp;lid={contentTypeByline}{Jason Burke}&amp;lpos={contentTypeByline}{1}\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse; background-repeat: no-repeat; color: #005689; text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; padding: 0px; margin: 0px\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"&amp;lid={contentTypeByline}{Jason Burke}&amp;lpos={contentTypeByline}{1}\">Jason Burke<\/a>\u00a0in Vendresse<\/li>\n<li class=\"publication\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse; background-repeat: no-repeat; overflow-x: hidden; overflow-y: hidden; font-weight: normal; border-color: #999999; padding: 0px; margin: 0px\"><a href=\"http:\/\/observer.guardian.co.uk\/\" name=\"&amp;lid={contentTypeByline}{The Observer}&amp;lpos={contentTypeByline}{2}\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse; background-repeat: no-repeat; color: #005689; text-decoration: none; padding: 0px; margin: 0px\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"&amp;lid={contentTypeByline}{The Observer}&amp;lpos={contentTypeByline}{2}\">The Observer,<\/a>\u00a0Sunday December 7 2008<\/li>\n<li class=\"history\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse; background-repeat: no-repeat; overflow-x: hidden; overflow-y: hidden; font-weight: normal; display: block; border-color: #999999; padding: 0px; margin: 0px\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/world\/2008\/dec\/07\/cafe-closures-village-rural-france#history-byline\" class=\"rollover historylink\" id=\"historylink-byline\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse; background-repeat: no-repeat; color: #005689; text-decoration: none; padding: 0px; margin: 0px\" target=\"_blank\">Article history<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"image\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse; background-repeat: no-repeat; padding: 0px; margin: 0px\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/static.guim.co.uk\/sys-images\/Guardian\/Pix\/pictures\/2008\/12\/06\/Cafe-460x276.jpg\" width=\"450\" height=\"272\" alt=\"Cafe Terrace\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse; background-repeat: no-repeat; padding: 0px; margin: 0px\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"caption\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse; background-repeat: no-repeat; margin-right: 0px; margin-left: 0px; color: #666666; margin-bottom: 13px; font-size: 0.857em; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.25; margin-top: 0px; padding: 0px\">Cafe Terrace on Rue Vieille du Temple. Photograph: Corbis<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-left: 0px; border-collapse: collapse; background-repeat: no-repeat; margin-bottom: 13px; padding: 0px\">As he drives through the hills and fields of the Ardennes, Jos\u00e9 Hody points out the landmarks of a devastated landscape. There&#8217;s Caf\u00e9 de la Paix, on the brink of bankruptcy; there&#8217;s Le Malibou, which has already shut down. In the town of Sedan, Hody, who hires out games to 100 local establishments, indicates La Taverne, now converted into a florist, and Quai 32, which is on the point of closure.<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-left: 0px; border-collapse: collapse; background-repeat: no-repeat; margin-bottom: 13px; padding: 0px\">We move on to Vendresse, a village of 550 inhabitants surrounded by muddy fields and the overflowing Meuse river. We visit the last remaining caf\u00e9 &#8211; once there were five &#8211; with the last remaining darts board, a menu du jour at \u00a310, pastis and worn Johnny Hallyday tapes. The table football game, one of scores that Hody once supplied to local businesses, has already gone.<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-left: 0px; border-collapse: collapse; background-repeat: no-repeat; margin-bottom: 13px; padding: 0px\">&#8216;We are going to have to sell up and, as there are no buyers, that&#8217;s it for the caf\u00e9,&#8217; said Ingrid Meurquin, the patronne of Le Donjon for the past eight years. &#8216;It&#8217;s sad for us and sad for the village.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-left: 0px; border-collapse: collapse; background-repeat: no-repeat; margin-bottom: 13px; padding: 0px\">All over\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/world\/france\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse; background-repeat: no-repeat; color: #005689; text-decoration: none; padding: 0px; margin: 0px\" target=\"_blank\">France<\/a>\u00a0it is the same story. Changing social habits, rural depopulation, the recently introduced ban on smoking, strict laws prohibiting fruit machines, inflation, static salaries and the economic crisis are forcing thousands of caf\u00e9s and bars to the wall.<\/p>\n<p>[ <a href=\"http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/world\/2008\/dec\/07\/cafe-closures-village-rural-france\" target=\"_blank\">click to continue reading at The Guardian<\/a> ]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>from The Guardian UK France fears death of village life as caf\u00e9s call last orders Threatened by new habits and a shrinking rural population, a national institution is fighting for survival Jason Burke\u00a0in Vendresse The Observer,\u00a0Sunday December 7 2008 Article history Cafe Terrace on Rue Vieille du Temple. Photograph: Corbis As he drives through the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture-art"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1158"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1158\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}