Why is France ending lockdown on Monday? Even if hospital admissions and cases in intensive care are going down, the virus is still very much out there. People in power are antsy about the economy but the government is also clearly worried that confinement cannot be enforced much longer.
“They said we were an undisciplined people,” Emmanuel Macron said in his televised address in mid-April, without specifying who “they” were – probably the Anglo-Saxons. He went on to congratulate the nation for respecting rules that are “among the strictest ever imposed on our people in a time of peace”.
But that was over nearly a month ago and public patience has worn thin since.
Approval of Macron’s handling of the crisis slumped in April, from 51% to 43%. Meanwhile, the approval ratings of Prime Minister, Edouard Philippe, are now higher than the president’s, down just two points to 46%.
That’s apparently led to tensions in what the media calls the “executive couple”, with reports that a reshuffle may be in the offing. There are rumours that Philippe has been putting out feelers about taking back his old job of mayor of Le Havre.
By Monday the French will have managed 55 days of lockdown, not as long as Italy and Spain, which were harder hit by the virus, but a long time, all the same.
I can see the signs of impatience in my neighbours – Marianne says she desperately wants to go to Paris, speculates that as many people may die from the effects of lockdown as from the virus, says it’s the government’s fault for not having enough masks and tests; Philippe stops anyone he can to chat, especially if they’re female, and clears the leaves in front of other neighbours’ doors; the rate of, technically lockdown-breaking, visits by families and friends has gone up.
You can’t enforce these measures without public consent and that is seeping away, as the intelligence services are probably telling a government whose authority has been undermined by its lies and U-turns over key aspects of the fight against the epidemic.
Poor old Hauts de France, the region in the north-east of the country that was classed orange, ie getting better, on the Coronavirus map earlier this week. But that nuance has disappeared when it comes to deconfinement.
So far as the post-lockdown regime is concerned, there will only be red and green and on 11 May Hauts de France will be red, in the naughty corner with ultra-infected Ile de France, Grand Est and Bourgogne-France Comté.
Testing and tracing are the new watchwords, and not before time.
The government promises to carry out 700,000 tests a week, aiming to identify 75% of cases, including asymptomatic ones.
Infected people and their families will be told to isolate, either at home or in hotels requisitioned for the purpose.
Doctors and other medical professionals will be responsible for finding out who they have been in contact with – there was talk of a bonus for doing that but MPs scrapped that idea. Specially established brigades will phone contacts, tell them to self-isolate and sometimes test them.
The definition of close contact will probably be someone who has been within a metre of an infected person without wearing a mask, according to reports.
The minister responsible for IT, Cédric O hopes the controversial StopCovid app will be ready in June.
France’s Covid-19 death toll now officially stands at 26,230, with 243 dying in the last 24 hours. 22,724 people are in hospital, down 484, and 2,868 are in intensive care, down 93. 55,782 people have been discharged from hospital, 755 of them yesterday.
