Paris awakens after 2-month slumber to world of yore, slowly

PARIS (AP) — After a two-month freeze, Paris slowly awakened on Monday to the world it had lost under lockdown as hairdressers, florists, nail salons and some other businesses reopened - but under mandatory social distancing requirements.

Like a just-awakened sleeping beauty, the City of Light needed to rub its eyes on the first day of relaxed home confinement rules. Shopkeepers trying to recover losses may need to wait days for Parisians to rediscover the daily habits from before the coronavirus halted most public life.

“It’s a bit an act of faith today,” said Edouard Lefebvre, who heads the business district on the Champs-Elysees Avenue, packed with crowds of locals and foreign tourists in normal times.

Only half of the avenue’s shops were open Monday, Lefebvreon said, reflecting the extensive preparations needed to safely receive customers and the hesitant steps many people took toward pre-pandemic routines.

“Clients won’t come back on day one. It takes time to get used to coming back to the Champs-Elysees, to come back to Paris,” Lefebvre said in an interview with the Associated Press.

Vehicles began filling streets again, but there were no traffic jams reported, and numerous people used bicycles to get around.

Restaurants and bars - at the heart of France's proverbial joie de vivre - are still waiting to learn when they will be back in business and cafe life can resume under the French government’s phased-in lifting of restrictions it imposed to stem the country's coronavirus outbreak.

France was hit hard by COVID-19, recording more than 26,000 virus-related deaths as of Sunday night. The virus still is circulating. Authorities, trying to strike a balance between public health and boosting the economy as cases plateaued, reopened numerous...