Afternoons on the river Marne are pretty busy these days – teenagers canoeing or sitting on the banks smoking dope, a young woman playing her mandolin while being filmed (I think that should be available on social media by now), fishermen, boules players, sunbathers and walkers, not all respecting social distances and not all wearing masks.
Ways to pass the time on the River Marne during an epidemic:
— Tony Cross (@TonyCrossJourno) May 26, 2020
1/ Get your friend to film you playing the mandolin pic.twitter.com/JOHscqM9t0
The market has been at the centre of a war of the masks this week.
Municipales 2020 : l’actualité du lundi 25 mai dans le Val-de-Marne #ValDeMarne https://t.co/9jKanK0brw
— Le Parisien | 94 (@LeParisien_94) May 25, 2020
It pitches the Communist Party (PCF) against the mainstream right’s candidate for mayor, Laurent Jeanne He hopes to dislodge the left in the second round of council elections, currently in a state of suffragium interruptum (I think I got the Latin right) due to the epidemic.
Last Friday, Jeanne, who is a regional councillor, was joined by a team of his supporters in handing out masks provided by the regional authority at the entrance to the market.
The PCF claims he told punters that he has taken the initiative because “the town council is doing nothing”. It has in fact distributed 70,000 masks – two per household – in our letterboxes, set up an improvised medical centre in a gym and distributed over 3,000 food parcels.
Jeanne denies uttering any such slander and claims that the mayor, Christian Fautré, ignored an invitation to join him on Friday’s distribution, preferring to hand out leaflets at another market.
The local opposition parties have accused Fautré and friends of hogging the anti-virus spotlight, rather than observing a local-level union sacré against the epidemic. That appears to be true and to have caused some dissent in the current majority’s ranks.
The left-wing list led by the PCF, which is fighting to keep hold of the mayor’s position, won 34.92% of the vote in the first round of local elections, while the right-wingers came out in front with 39.76%.
Which might explain why the battle for credit in the anti-Covid fight is so intense.
Renault is planning to lose 5,000 jobs by natural wastage, according to Le Figaro.
This is despite the government’s announcement of an aid package, which pushed up the company’s value on the Paris Bourse by 17% this morning.
An announcement that the carmaker, which was privatised in 1990 and is now 15% state-owned, aims to save two billion euros and close some plants in France prompted the Macron government to promise aid on condition that production is transferred to electric and hybrid cars and there is more production in Europe.
No mention of public transport.
Having suffered badly during lockdown, clothes shops have announced that more than 14,000 jobs could go.
France’s economic activity is estimated to have slumped 21% during the Covid crisis, according to national statistics institute Insee. That’s actually an improvement on the 33% estimate on 7 May and Insee reports some recovery in companies’ morale, which hit rock bottom last month, but not in consumer confidence.
There has been some confusion over the national Covid-19 statistics, almost certainly because of the correction of inaccurate figures on deaths given by care homes.
Confusing mortality figures in France. The total of deaths – taking account of deaths in care homes held back since Thurs – is 28,530. This is 98 up on yesterday (before care homes were added) But we’re also told today’s hospital toll was 93. Only 5 care home deaths since Th?
— John Lichfield (@john_lichfield) May 26, 2020
But the general trend is good – fewer cases reported, less pressure on the hospitals and numbers in intensive care down.
France’s Covid-19 death toll now officially stands at 28,530, 73 in the past 24 hours. 16,264 people are in hospital, down 534, with 1,555 in intensive care, down 54. 65,879 patients have been discharged from hospital, 680 of them yesterday.
