“The health situation is improving more than we hoped for,” explains Prime Minister Jean Castex at the end of the Council of Ministers. And so it announces the end of the outdoor masks, starting today, and the curfew starting on Sunday. “However, the obligation to wear a mask remains, even outdoors, in some circumstances: in crowded places, in rows and in markets,” Castex said.
Lockdown
For President Emmanuel Macron this is an undoubted success, because at the beginning of 2021 he had avoided proclaiming a harsh confinement, as the experts of the Scientific Council asked him, preferring to play the role of the head of state attentive to health needs, of course, but also to the needs of the country and of an economy that would not have withstood another complete stop as in March 2020. Despite the protests of many scientists, and after a small derogation, around Easter, of the sacred principle of keeping schools always open, Macron seems to have won his bet: the vaccination campaign, after the disastrous beginnings, gives excellent results, the variants have not caused an out-of-control increase in the epidemic, and the heat helps to curb infections. We are almost back to normal, and with a perfect calendar: on Sunday we vote for the regional and departmental elections, an important test in view of the presidential elections in spring 2022.
The invitation
“Our results are good, we have been disciplined collectively,” Macron said with satisfaction during a break at the Vivatech show in Paris dedicated to innovation and start-ups. his workhorse. “But I urge the French to keep getting vaccinated, it’s the only way to win in the long run,” he added. The data are encouraging and Prime Minister Castex listed them: after a tragedy that cost France 110,000 deaths, never had such a low rate of circulation of the virus since August 2020, less than 5,000 cases a day, no department with outbreaks particular, less than 2,000 hospitalized in intensive care, and an average of 61 deaths per day in the last week, much lower than at the most difficult times of the crisis.
Meetings
It is the figures of the epidemic that allow the end of the compulsory mask and curfew, but at the same time the government seems to take note of a situation that was still going in that direction: the heat wave of recent days has pushed to a even more relaxed use of masks, and above all the curfew at 11pm (after having been for months at 7pm and then at 9pm) was already no longer respected, especially in Paris. Last week the police loaded and fired tear gas at thousands of children who had organized rallies at the esplanade des Invalides and then at the Tuileries, parties that lasted until two in the morning. And the start of the European football has made the 11pm limit even more unacceptable, when the match ends at that time and – in the case of France-Germany – thousands of fans go out into the streets to celebrate the victory. Several politicians, such as the president of the Ile de France region, Valérie Pecresse, were asking for an exception to the curfew that should have ended on June 30, and which was now less and less observed. In addition to the figures and a certain fatigue of the population, there is a third element, namely the electoral deadline on Sunday (with the second round a week later). Until yesterday, polls predicted strong successes for Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement national, especially in the South, and for abstention. After the announcements about face masks and curfews, the government could win a few more votes.
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June 16, 2021 (change June 16, 2021 | 22:10)
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