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France’s Covid-19 restrictions continue beyond 15 December 2020

 

French Prime Minister, Mr Jean Castex, announced yesterday, 10 December 2020, that the government will delay lifting some Covid-19 lockdown restrictions next week until the number of cases reaches its target of 5,000 per day.

 

It was expected that lockdown restrictions would lift on 15 December 2020, enabling museums and cinemas to open, but this is now delayed.

 

The government will lift a restriction on people's movement from 15 December, but replace it with an 8:00pm curfew, including on New Year's Eve. Jean Castex said that museums, art galleries, theatres, and cinemas will remain closed for an extra three weeks to 5 January 2021 as the number of new Covid-19 infections begins to slowly rise again. Bars and restaurants are expected to re-open from mid-January 2021.

 

Castex said families would be allowed to travel to celebrate Christmas together on 25 December. An exception to the nighttime curfew of 8:00pm will be made for Christmas Eve.

 

The Prime Minister said that the number of Covid-19 infections has stopped decreasing. The situation has "considerably improved" since the country entered a second lockdown on 30 October, and the number of new infections has fallen from nearly 50,000 a day in late October to around 10,000 a day.However,the decline "has slowed over the past several days," Castex said. "We're on a sort of plateau ... We cannot let our guard down. We have not exited the second wave."

 

Health Minister, Olivier Véran, said that France would fall far short of its target of a maximum 5,000 new cases per day by Tuesday 15 December, when the lockdown was scheduled to end. On Thursday 10 December, France recorded nearly 14,000 infections over the previous 24 hours, compared with 12,000 a week earlier, he said.

 

"We have still not exited the second wave," Olivier Véran said, adding that there could be no large gatherings on New Year's Eve in order to prevent a rebound and a possible third lockdown in 2021.

 

The total death toll in France since the beginning of the pandemic in March 2020 is over 55,000.

 

French citizens were not happy with the government’s decision to postpone the re-opening of cultural venues until January 2021. "We are tired of not being given more consideration. Once more, culture is being left on the side of the road," said Philippe Lellouche, a French actor and director. Culture Minister, Roselyne Bachelot, did not even attend the news conference announcing the new delays.













 

MARTINA NICOLLS

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MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author  of: The Paris Residences of James Joyce  (2020), Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

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