France is set to move again on Monday after an unprecedented 55-day confinement due to the coronavirus epidemic, with the wearing of a mandatory mask in transport and a health puzzle at school.
“Thanks to you, the virus has receded. But it is still there. SAVE LIVES STAY CAREFUL“, President Emmanuel Macron tweeted Sunday evening, a few hours before the deadline.
From 6 a.m., the Paris metro was already almost full. In Châtelet les Halles, one of the main transport hubs in central Paris, the crowds were almost that of the days before the confinement, an AFP journalist noted. RER lines A and B arrived filled with passengers while loud voices from the loudspeakers asked, in vain, to keep “one meter away“.
On the road network, however, it was not the crowds of the big days, with only 11 km of traffic jams recorded in Ile-de-France around 6:30 am.
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The daily death toll from Covid-19 fell to 70 on Sunday, the lowest since much of the population was put under wraps on March 17. But the total toll remains heavy, with at least 26,380 deaths. Even if the pressure on emergencies is always reduced.
With the gradual lifting of restrictions, hundreds of thousands of people return to work, soon followed by some of the schoolchildren.
However, the state health emergency law was not promulgated on Sunday evening as hoped by the government, the Constitutional Council having to examine it only this Monday. Therefore the executive appeals “in the sense of the responsibility of the French“to comply with some of its provisions in the meantime, the Elysée and Matignon announced in a statement.
This postpones until Monday evening, subject to this approval, the entry into force of two flagship provisions: the limitation of travel to 100 km and the compulsory certificate in public transport.
This revival, vital for reviving an economy plunged into a recession never seen since the Second World War with partial unemployment affecting more than 12 million people, worries at the health level. Especially since the appearance of three new sources of infection in areas of the west of the country, classified in “green“underlines the dangers of this return.
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Another burning issue is the return to school which worries local elected officials, teachers and parents. Monday will see a pre-return of teachers to organize the resumption. Students are expected from Tuesday, or even later depending on the municipality. But many mayors are reluctant to reopen schools in the face of the puzzle of health rules to enforce, especially by the youngest.
The deconfinement also marks the end of the certificates to be completed for any movement. And the distance you can get away from your home goes from 1 to 100 kilometers (one reason “compelling“, in particular family or professional, will be necessary to go beyond). The ban on socializing is also relaxed and gatherings of up to ten people authorized, in compliance with”barrier gestures“.
Four regions (Ile-de-France, Hauts-de-France, Grand Est and Bourgogne-Franche-Comté) and 32 departments, including Mayotte, where some 27 million French people live, remain classified “red“because of the still rapid circulation of the virus and the risk of saturation of hospitals.
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