35,000 bars closed in Spain between 2010 and 2023, according to data from the INE, the National Institute of Statistics. What is lost when a bar closes? This is what Hugo Subtil, an expert researcher in economic policy and professor at the University of Zurich, has studied in France.
What does a bar represent?
— A place with social interaction. It's different from a bakery or supermarket.
Have many bars closed in France?
— An 80% decrease from 1960 to 2023. It went from 200,000 to 38,800. But I have focused the study on what we call bar-tobacco shop or PMU bar.
I mean…
— Bars where, besides having a beer, you can play cards, place sports bets... They are, in a way, a continuation of the bars where factory workers went after an eight-hour shift. The kind where you might end up chatting with the people at the next table.
But we no longer live in the 80s.
— That's why bars don't represent the same thing either. In fact, these types of bars can now have a negative connotation. It seems that if you don't have a job or much to do, you're just there playing around and wasting time…
Have many closed?
— 18,000 between 2002 and 2022.
What happens when they close?
— Socialization doesn't stop, but it shifts to the home. You go from talking to everyone to talking only to acquaintances, meaning family and friends. The social fabric is less dynamic, which affects solidarity and competitiveness.
In what sense?
— It contributes to a competitive worldview. In the bar, you could find out if someone needed a job, or meet people who also needed public assistance. Without that, solidarity can only exist among acquaintances. And in a world of scarce resources, it makes you see others as rivals for those resources.
And politically?
— It benefits the far right. The data shows it. The far right always gains ground when a bar closes, but the increase triples in rural areas. It's easy to understand.
Forward.
— In the city, if one bar closes, there's another one next door. In rural areas, in 20% of cases, there was no alternative. Not just a bar, no alternative at all: no cinema, no sports hall... Nothing.
Why does it favor the right?
— Because he has managed to transform frustration into fear and anger, with an increasingly narrow view of the world. And he has politicized it with a very specific rhetoric: it doesn't matter.
And the left?
— In France, it has been more focused on the suburbsThese are often poor areas with high levels of immigration. To put it in extreme terms, the radical left prioritizes poor Muslim suburbs over cities. The far right has understood the urban-rural divide. And there's another factor.
Which is it?
— When the left talks about rural areas and these bars, it often speaks in technical terms: taxes, regulating gambling, making tobacco or alcohol more expensive.
Without feeling.
— At the beginning of my research, I wondered: why can't the far left capitalize on frustration? There's an interesting study that focuses on trust.
And what does it conclude?
— If you take two people who are the same—in terms of gender, income, etc.—and one has many people they trust while the other doesn't, it's more likely that one will vote further to the right and the other further to the left. In other words, the more solidarity you can get from your community, the less likely you are to support the far right. The closure of bars is making that circle smaller and smaller.
And what happens if a pastry shop closes?
— Nothing. We've looked. Supermarkets, bakeries… Nothing. Nothing happens because they don't represent any social fabric.
Conclusion?
— When calculating the cost-benefit of a decision, politicians must consider what is being destroyed in terms of the social fabric. From Paris, it might be easy to say, "We must close this down; there are drunk people." But besides drinking and smoking, other things are happening.
What surprised you the most?
— When places like this open up—and some have—votes for the far right decrease. This means that politicians can take action to create social life, like a bar or other similar establishments.
Does the same thing happen in other countries?
— In the United Kingdom, studies have shown that closing pubs favors the far right, which at the same time tries to portray them as an image of good England.
What does it mean?
— They're basically saying, "Look, we used to be able to go here with our neighbors, but now that it's full of Muslims, we don't go anymore." But that's not the reality; they're not closing for that reason.
Why are they closing?
— Because of purchasing power, because men also take care of their children and can't spend the night in the pub with friends, because our work is no longer eight hours in a factory... In short, for many reasons that have nothing to do with immigration.