French Chinese buy up Paris' traditional `bar-tabac' cafes

A major sociological shift is underway in Paris as the traditional "bar-tabacs" -- the cafe-cum-cigarette shops that have formed part of the city's identity for generations -- are being bought up by French Chinese.

According to the Tobacconists' Union, around a quarter of the capital's bar-tabacs are now run by Chinese owners as the original proprietors move out of what they see as an increasingly unprofitable business.

"At least 50 percent of sales of bar-tabacs over the last year have been to French nationals of Chinese origin," union president Gerard Bohelay says.

Since the 1970s French Chinese have been a major presence in the 13th arrondissement in the southeast of the capital, but now entrepreneurs are moving out of so-called "Chinatown" into new neighborhoods.

"It used to be people from Auvergne [in central France] or Brittany who came up to Paris to open bistros. Now it is increasingly the Chinese who are taking over these family businesses. The customers cannot see any difference," Bohelay says.

In a bar-tabac on the boulevard Port-Royal in the Montparnasse quarter, young Chinese staff serve a group of middle-aged clients with beers and the traditional Parisian croque-monsieur (toasted ham-and-cheese sandwich). In a corner, owner Hugo Jin takes charge of cigarette and lottery ticket sales.

"I used to be the owner of a Chinese restaurant. But the competition was too strong, I couldn't make ends meet. With bar-tabacs at least there are trading rules. Prices are regulated," says Jin, who took over the cafe in 2001.

"Things could be better here, but we are managing. I am doing it for my children who are aged one and two. I don't want them to have to do what I am doing. It's not a career. I have to work 13 hours a day," he says.

At a nearby bistro -- the Verre a Pied -- the owner Claude Derrien says he can "understand perfectly well why the French are selling up to the Chinese."

"I have had this bistro for 22 years and my profits have been going down constantly," he says. "Mainly it's because cigarette sales are falling, but there are also all these cheap restaurants that are springing up like mushrooms."

"The Chinese who buy up the bar-tabacs put a lot of money into video games, lottery sales and so on. Whether we like it or not, that is the way things are going. The traditional bistro that we used to love may not be here for long," he says.