Champigny market has reopened, with a restricted number of stalls, still tightly packed in some places. As a new Covid-19 cluster is noted in our region, the government has set a date for the  local council elections’ deciding round, which was postponed because of the epidemic, and domestic violence has risen but not feminicide, apparently.

Today I returned to shopping in the local market. It was closed during lockdown and has now reopened in a downsized form.

Entrance is limited by temporary barriers and at one end a council worker offers hand cleanser to shoppers as they enter. Strangely, this is not the case at the other entrances, although we are offered leaflets by trade unionists and masks by representatives of the regional council.

Epidemic-fighting rules mean a reduced number of traders, with no take-away cooked food – there’s usually a choice of Turkish, Vietnamese, Moroccan and Tunisian – and no clothes and hardware.

That leaves meat, fish, fruit and vegetables, all surrounded by plastic, the stallholders wearing either masks or visors, which give them a slightly military aspect.

Despite the thinned ranks of traders, they keep to their usual spots, meaning that distancing is not easily observed in the narrow aisles. And some people seem to think that wearing a mask makes it unnecessary. Others appear to believe that a mask is some sort of talisman providing magical protection no matter where you put it, around your neck or just over your mouth, for example.

Lockdown must have been hard for the traders, even if they received some government bailout funds. One chap, of Algerian origin, I think, started an organic fruit and veg stall last December. The government’s grants are based on their contributions to the tradespeople’s social security system, so I believe he won’t have been eligible.

Nevertheless, they seemed to be in good form, the fishmongers yelling through the protective cloth, the cheesemonger boasting about the quality of his Cantal and the women on the offal stall asking how Mum is as she meticulously pruned the veal kidneys I bought.

A new cluster has been identified in our region, the Val-de-Marne, although not in a town near us.

Eight cases have been identified on a building site in Villeneuve-le-Roi, near Orly airport.

The second round of local elections will be held on 28 June, the government has announced, so long as the virus respects the democratic process.

The first round took place just before lockdown, leading to some criticism about the risk to public health, in particular to polling officials. A report has since claimed that it didn’t result in extra infections. Even if that’s true, it was a risky choice, made by Macron partly because of pressure from the largest opposition parties, apparently.

A local councillor told me a couple of week ago that he expected the whole process to be started all over again. “Some of the candidates are dead,” he pointed out.

The number of women murdered in France appears to have gone down during lockdown, according to Gender Equality Minister Marlène Schiappa. But the number of cases of domestic violence registered with the police has soared.

The number of feminicides reported went down to one every 4.2-4.4 days, compared one every 2.5-3.0 days, she said, while warning that the figure could be a result of underreporting.

But fears that confinement would lead to more violence in the home seem to have been justified. The number of legal complaints has risen 36%.

France’s Covid-19 death toll now officially stands at 28,215, with 83 in the past 24 hours. 17,583 people are in hospital, down 358, with 1,745 in intensive care, down 49. 63,858 patients have been discharged from hospital, 504 of them yesterday.