Parisians seek UNESCO heritage status for bistros, cafes

A group of Parisians has launched a campaign for UNESCO to award cultural heritage status to the French capital's bistros and cafe terraces, almost three years after terror attacks in the French capital which left 130 people dead, some of them gunned down in cafes and restaurants.

An association -- made up of bistro owners, actors and other private individuals -- has been set up to submit an application for Paris' bistros and cafe terraces to awarded "protected" status and put on UNESCO's intangible cultural heritage list.

The dossier will be handed in September to the Ministry of Culture, which is responsible for submitting such applications to UNESCO, the organisers said on Thursday.

The association said it wants to raise awareness both in France and abroad of "the role that bistros and cafe terraces play in bringing people and cultures together, and their role as intellectual and artistic melting pots."

The new association argued that following the attacks on November 13, 2015, "Parisians crowded onto the terraces... to show that they regarded them as places of culture, of freedom and of the art of living."

Similar campaigns have recently been started to put both the French baguette and the iconic green "bouquinisites" book stalls that line the river Seine in Paris -- and are said to make up the world's largest open-air bookshop -- on UNESCO's intangible cultural heritage list.