KEY POINTS:
As he drives through the hills and fields of the Ardennes, Jose Hody points out the landmarks of a devastated landscape. There's Cafe de la Paix, on the brink of bankruptcy; there'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.
We move on to Vendresse, a village of 550 inhabitants surrounded by muddy fields and the overflowing Meuse river.
We visit the last remaining cafe - once there were five - with the last remaining darts board, a menu du jour at 10 ($25), pastis and worn Johnny Hallyday tapes. The table football game, one of scores that Hody once supplied to local businesses, has already gone.
"We are going to have to sell up and, as there are no buyers, that's it for the cafe," said Ingrid Meurquin, the patronne of Le Donjon for the past eight years. "It's sad for us and sad for the village."
All over France, it 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 cafes and bars to the wall.
In the big cities, the sheer weight of population and prices are keeping business buoyant.
"We've no problems here," said Michel Gineston, owner of Le Barricou bar in Paris's fashionable 3rd arrondissement, but in the small villages it is a "catastrophe".
Meurquin has been in the business for 20 years. Vendresse, a classic cluster of grey-roofed homes around a fortified Gothic church, does not suffer from the loss of inhabitants like so many rural settlements in France, because it is a dormitory for nearby Charleville-Mezieres. But that has brought its own problems.
"People do not have the sense of rural life these days. There's no conviviality. About five of my regulars are from the village. My revenue is down 20 per cent on last year. I feel like I've failed but I know it's time to do something else."
But no cafe means no social life in the village. On December 6 last year, Meurquin hosted the local firemen's annual lunch.
Jean-Louis Lenoir, 58, said: "Even if you don't go there all the time, a village needs a cafe. You don't talk to people in a supermarket. You can't hold a lunch there.
"It's where everybody - young and old, from all social classes - mixes."
In 1960, France had 200,000 cafes and bars. Now there are just over 40,000.
So far this year, another 500 have closed. Studies suggest that the rate of bankruptcy among cafe owners could be up to 56 per cent higher than last year.
Herve Lambel, of union Cerf, said: "The hotel and restaurant business has already been undermined by a host of factors before the economic crisis.
For 30 years there has been the competition from takeaways, dropping alcohol consumption and the advent of television, which means people go out less. And in a crisis, it's beers and cigarettes that are first hit."
Herve Novelli, France's Tourism Minister, contested the bankruptcy figures. The National Institute of Statistics says bankruptcies in the sector are only up by 11 per cent.
But Lambel fears cafes will soon become relics, catering just to tourists and the nostalgic.
"We have to save a few before we end up just pointing tourists at those which are still there, saying, 'Look, that's what it was like in a bygone era'," he said.
Many cafe owners are resorting to extreme measures, tolerating smoking, running illicit lotteries, bingo and even gambling. On the door of the only bar tabac in Dresny, a small village in the Loire-Atlantic, a sticker welcomes smokers. Yet Joel Lailler - Jojo the rebel to his fellow bar owners - has now hoisted the white flag. Even a hunger strike and an interview with French President Nicolas Sarkozy has not held back the inevitable.
Lailler said: "I opened a breach, but no one followed me. If the Government can't let us decide ourselves whether to let our clients smoke, then I'll take a decision for them and close."
In the Ardennes, cafe owners complained that, as their Belgian counterparts faced no ban on smoking or on staying open later than 1am, local youths simply drove across the border to spend their evenings there.
"There is no freedom any more," said Jacky Valente, the 44-year-old owner of Le Sedanais in Sedan, where on Friday afternoon only two clients, one Valente's nephew, sipped beers.
"You can sell cigarettes, but not smoke; buy alcohol, but not drink; buy a car that can go at 150kp/h , but not drive it faster than 110."
There are now moves to change the law on games in bars to help cafes attract a new clientele, but the owners say it is too little too late.
"We are talking about something that is key to civilisation," said Philippe Bouton, a parliamentary aide.
"If the cafes disappear and we all end up interacting via computers, we will lose what separates men from beasts. We will lose civilisation itself."
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