Frugal French are closing restaurants

Francois Simon, Le Figaro's secretive restaurant critic (right) and no stranger to controversy - he attacked Gordon Ramsay for providing "karaoke cuisine" just before his restaurant opened in Versailles earlier this year - has this week identified a terrible truth about life in France: restaurants and cafes are going bankrupt at an alarming rate as French diners, hit by the rising cost of living, give up eating out so often and, when they do, behave with uncharacteristic frugality.

As a result, around 3,000 restaurants and cafes across France closed in the first three months of this year. Bankruptcies are up 25 per cent year on year.

The smoking ban introduced this January hasn't helped, nor has the shift among Paris office workers towards a sandwich for lunch rather than a plat du jour. But the big problem, Simon says, is that French restaurant-goers have become much more careful about what they spend. They are skipping aperitifs, avoiding starters, drinking tap water instead of bottled - even instead of wine - and passing on the coffee. More and more are sharing desserts, if they order one at all.

This has led to a war of nerves developing between diners and restaurant staff. Some customers are finding themselves harassed ­ even ejected ­ by angry waiters and maitre d's. At the Aux Lyonnais restaurant in Paris, owned by the celebrity chef Alain Ducasse, anyone who declines to order an aperitif is told that their meal "will take a long time to prepare". Says Simon: "This is a classic ploy."

At the Quincy restaurant, near the Gare de Lyon, two couples were recently shown the door when they chose not to order a starter. "How do you expect me to survive?" the owner asked when they complained.

Meanwhile, struggling French restaurateurs are still praying for a cut in VAT from 19.6 per cent to 5.5 per cent promised by President Chirac six years ago. President Sarkozy has revived the idea but it remains blocked in Brussels.