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Summer Arend, from the United States, came to Paris four years
ago and worked as a sommelier in a restaurant, an industry
forced to close because of the pandemic.
The stress of long periods locked down in her small apartment
contributed to the breakup of her relationship with her
boyfriend, she said.
Yet looking back over the past year, she saw positives.
"It really put things in perspective for me. Having the time off
has given me a lot of time to think about my life, and the next
steps," she said.
From midday on March 17, 2020, all non-essential businesses were
ordered to close, office workers stayed home, and for almost two
months, people could only step outside for essential trips or an
hour of exercise per day.
The lockdown was eased by the summer, then re-imposed at the end
of October, then eased again at the end of last year. Now, with
severe COVID-19 cases rising, French officials say Paris may
have to go back into some form of lockdown.
Anne Stephan works in museums, another mainstay of Parisian life
shut because of the pandemic.
"I fluctuate between moments of anxiety and moments, not of
optimism, but of hope. I would say that as time goes, anxiety
has grown in me a little bit more than at the beginning of the
lockdown," she said.
Serge Ristitch, a 61-year-old sound engineer, said the hardest
parts of the past year were not being able to ride his bicycle,
or visit museums to indulge his passion for art.
"It was very hard, and hard to accept psychologically," he said.
(Writing by Lea Guedj and Christian Lowe, Editing by Alexandra
Hudson)
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