We’re swimming in milk. It’s spring, the cows are calving, making them superproductive milk-wise. But no markets, no restaurants and exports are down.
So – shock! horror! – the rules for some appellation contrôlée (AOC) cheeses are being relaxed. This is so significant that it must be done through a decree, published in the government’s imposingly named Journal officiel.
Some blue-cheese makers can keep their milk for longer before starting the process and can stock their product at -5°C, instead of 0°C.
The rules for stocking Comté, from the Jura, and saint-nectaire, from Auvergne, have also been relaxed.
Not exactly a revolution. Let’s hope it helps. And doesn’t have too much effect on the quality of the cheese, especially comté.
Having quoted Général de Gaulle on the number of cheeses in France, I decided to check out how many there actually are.
Now I’m confused.
It turns out that there isn’t even agreement on the number the general cited, let alone on how many cheeses are actually produced. Estimates vary widely. Maybe 1,200, maybe 1,800. In any case there are only 45 cheeses that have the status of AOC, nowadays known as AOP, which is the EU designation, and six Label rouge, which is another EU guarantee of a certain quality.
Prime Minister Edouard Philippe held a press conference about how lockdown would end yesterday.
We’re working on it, was the message. Oh, and “things won’t get back to normal for a long time”.
A vaccine will probably not be developed this year, herd immunity is not for tomorrow and there is no proven treatment, he said, so “we will have to learn to live with the virus”.
A lot of tests must be carried out – notice a change in the message here? – and infected people must be placed in isolation.
Rules about visiting your elderly relatives in care will be relaxed, the schools will reopen, although classes may be staggered, and a target of producing 17 million masks a week has been set. It may be declared obligatory to wear them in public transport.
The second round of council elections, at one point planned for 21 June, will certainly take place after the summer. Well, we were all on the edges of our seats about that!
The prime minister gave the population – les Français, to French officialdom and media who kindly expunge us foreigners from the record – pretty good marks for the observation of the lockdown. There has been a huge fall in the number of times people leave home. The police have checked people’s right to be out 13.5 million times and only 800,000 cases of people flouting the ban have been registered.
France’s Covid-19 death toll is now officially 19,718, up 395 in 24 hours. 30,610 people are in hospital, down but only by 29, and 5,744 are in intensive care, down 89. 35,578 people have been discharged from hospital, 595 of them yesterday. On previous weekends the figures have been a bit inaccurate and adjusted during the week.
