French lockdown escapees party in Madrid

A new French generation is heading to Spain, the land that sent Napoleon packing but inspired Édouard Manet, Georges Bizet and Gustave Doré.

Young people from north of the border are pouring into the heart of Madrid, packing the terraces of cafés, wandering through fashionable streets and booking Airbnbs. Their goal? To have a good time — pasarlo bien — and to enjoy life’s diversions in ways not possible at home.

“In France, the curfew is 6pm and everything is closed — no restaurants, no bars, we cannot do anything — but here everything is open,” says Charlotte, a Paris student who declines to give her surname as she puffs on a cigarette near the Plaza Dos de Mayo, named after an 1808 uprising against a previous French invasion. 

For her, and the six friends with whom she is sharing an Airbnb, the priority is to party — and Madrid is one of the few spots in Europe where that is possible. “As we are all staying together, we can go to bars and then have a bit of fun back at the flat,” Charlotte says.

France has kept its bars and restaurants closed, placed weekend-only lockdowns on Dunkirk and Nice and placed 23 départements, including the whole Paris region, under increased surveillance.

Not so in Spain. After imposing one of the world’s toughest lockdowns between March and June last year — during which children were banned for 45 days from venturing outdoors — the country has steered clear of orders to stay at home. Instead, the central government has largely relied on the regions to put their own policies in place against the pandemic’s second and third waves. After a frightening high level of infections in January, rates have been falling for weeks.

Even so, Madrid stands out for its relaxed approach. The centre-right head of the region’s government, Isabel Díaz Ayuso — one of the country’s most polarising political figures — has vowed that the hospitality industry will not be ruined on her watch. So while in Catalonia restaurant dining is prohibited from 5pm, in Madrid you can eat out until 11pm. On sunny weekends, the plazas are full of families and friends nibbling on tapas or ordering la penúltima — the last-but-one drink.

“If anyone wants to visit Madrid . . . from Paris or any other part of the world, and they comply with the rules and the airport is safe, it’s fine by me,” Díaz Ayuso said at the weekend.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Madrid has the highest infection rates in mainland Spain, although case numbers are about a quarter of the level of five weeks ago.

For all the street life in Madrid, people are not permitted to have a friend drop round at home and parties are emphatically forbidden. But the fiestas happen all the same, with an average of almost 400 closed down by the city’s police every weekend, often in tourist apartments. 

Javier Fernández Ruiz, the head of the city police, faults les Français. “It is principally the French who are taking advantage of the greater freedom there is for entertainment in our city,” he recently told Spanish television. 

The irony is that the tourists’ freedom of movement into Spain — which does not extend to non-EU nations like the UK — contrasts with restrictions on travel within the country. Most Spanish regions ban people from entering and exiting, and while Madrid does not impose such curbs, its neighbours do.

But it can be difficult for the police to take action against non-residents. The force is sometimes unable to gain entrance to flats holding parties if those inside do not open the door, an exercise in frustration for both sides.

Still, there is little clear data to indicate just how many illegal parties involve foreign tourists — and the southern migration of the French is not an exclusive matter of the young.

One 60-something member of the French establishment remarks that his exclusive hotel is full of his compatriots and that some business class travellers are now making the Paris-Madrid trip every weekend.

“There is no other option,” he says. “Life in Madrid is almost normal except for dinner time, which ends a little earlier than normal, which is fine for me. But when we get back to Paris, it is like going back to jail.”

daniel.dombey@ft.com