Lockdown has dealt a serious blow to the epidemic, French health boss Jérôme Salomon said yesterday, as he announced three successive days of decline in the number of people in hospital with Covid-19 and the ninth daily fall in the number in intensive care.

Yesterday’s death toll was 761, however, slightly up on the previous day. So the message is no let-up yet.

When it comes to phasing out lockdown, Macron says he “does not want any discrimination” against older or more vulnerable people.

He was reacting to the words of an expert, Professor Jean-François Delfraissy, who told a Senate hearing that lockdown should continue for the vulnerable and “people of a certain age – 65 or 70 years old”.

Everything here is confusing. Does the professor mean people over 65 or those over 70? Can’t he make his mind up and, if so, why not?

And what does Macron mean by “discrimination”?

When announcing plans for “déconfinement”, he said himself it would be phased and seemed to imply that restrictions would remain in place for vulnerable people. Speaking as someone at the lower end of the professor’s age category, that seems advisable to me. I shall continue to be careful until I’m sure the damn virus has gone away.

We seem to have forgotten the meaning of the word “discrimination”. It doesn’t have to be bad. A discriminating museum director will assemble a good collection, a discriminating doctor will choose the right treatment for patients. Racism, sexism and other discriminations based on prejudice are unjust. Rules that target those at risk for their own protection are not.

Mayors can’t introduce additional anti-virus rules on top of those put in place by the government, the country’s top court has ruled, although it made an exception for “pressing reasons arising from local circumstances”.

The French Human Rights League had appealed to the Conseil d’état against an order by the mayor of Sceaux, a town just outside Paris, obliging all residents to wear masks.

Several mayors have declared night-time curfews, with Christian Estrosi, the hard-right mayor of Nice, tightening conditions in some deprived areas after fighting broke out one weekend. I don’t know if these decisions were ever challenged.

The curfew in Nice was later extended to the whole region by the préfet, who is a representative of the national government and so not covered by the Conseil d’état’s ruling.

The famous Dr Fauci, the US’s Jérôme Salamon, said a few days ago we should never go back to shaking hands, a practice he claims leads to the spread of flu and other infections.

This led to a heated exchange on one American Facebook account I follow, some people declaring they have always hated the whole idea.

Twenty-six years ago I moved from the UK, where casual physical contact is, or at least used to be, practically regarded as an act of terrorism, to France, where the concept of personal space is radically different, as anyone walking down a Paris street soon discovers.

Here people shake hands and even kiss as a casual greeting – yes, even the men! Arriving at work can become a 10-minute ceremony. And knowing how many times to faire la bise is a real challenge. It can change according to region and, as far as I can tell, age and racial/cultural origin.

It all seemed very exotic at first but I have come to feel that the physical contact breaks a psychological barrier and establishes a certain mutual confidence, whether justified or not. I believe that shaking hands originally started as a way to prove you weren’t carrying a sword or dagger, which is always nice to know, especially in the workplace.

France’s Covid-19 death toll now officially stands at 18,681. 31,190 people are in hospital due to the virus, a fall of 115 in 24 hours, while 6,027 are in intensive care, down 221. 34,420 people have been discharged from hospital, 1,608 yesterday.