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‘Red, orange, green’: France prepares Covid traffic light system for travel

France will launch a 'traffic light' system determining the quarantine measures and other travel restrictions and the first 'green list' will be ready by June 9th, the foreign minister has confirmed. Here's what we know about how the system works.

'Red, orange, green': France prepares Covid traffic light system for travel
Travellers prepare their documents as they queue at the immigration desk of Roissy Charles-de-Gaulle international airport. Photo: Christophe ARCHAMBAULT / AFP

In effect, France already has a three-tier system of travel restrictions, with travel from certain countries banned in almost all circumstances, others allowed to travel with testing and quarantine and arrivals from within the EU allowed with no quarantine requirement.

However from June 9th, this will be formalised into a ‘traffic light’ system, with red, amber and green countries.

Announcing the idea, tourism minister Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne said: “We will be happy to welcome Europeans just as French people will be happy to visit Europe.

“Regarding countries that are outside the European area [EU and Schengen zone countries] we will work on lists and colours. There will be the green countries, orange countries and red countries.”

More detail has now been revealed about how these will work:

Red – travel will be banned from ‘red list’ countries in almost all circumstances, and even fully vaccinated people will be covered by this ban. Red list countries will be places where variants are causing concern, said foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian. This sounds very similar to the rules already in place for 16 countries deemed high risk. Almost all travel from those countries – which include India and Brazil – is banned, and people who are allowed to travel face a strict 10-day quarantine enforced by visits from the police.

Amber – travel will be allowed for any reason, including tourism and family visits, but only people who can prove they have been fully vaccinated will be exempted from testing and quarantine requirements.

To be counted as ‘fully vaccinated’ you must have received one of the four vaccines currently licensed for use in the EU – Pfizer BioNTech, Moderna, AstraZeneca or Johnson & Johnson (known as Janssen) and it must be more than two weeks since your final dose of the vaccine.

Green – travel will be allowed for any reason with no requirement to quarantine, but travellers may have to present either proof of vaccination or a negative test to enter.

When?

France plans – health situation permitting – to reopen its borders to visitors from outside the EU from June 9th and Le Drian said that the aim is to have the green list published by then.

Until then, it is important to note that if you are travelling to France the rules are the same whether you are vaccinated or not.

There is also a “principle of reciprocity” added Le Drian, so countries that refuse to recognise French vaccination certificates may not be added to the French ‘green list’ even if their health situation is good.

What about the UK?

Asked about the UK’s situation, Le Drian told French radio station LCI: “We hope that the control of variants can develop, but the arrival of the Indian variant in the United Kingdom poses a problem.”

Germany has put the UK back on its risk list due to the situation with the Indian variant.

Asked if this was likely to happen in France, Le Drian replied: “Perhaps not on the red list.”

The French government is also working together with the EU to set up a digital Covid-19 ‘health pass’ with vaccination certificates and test results that will become key for international travel within the bloc.

Member comments

  1. France is in the orange category at present. So, if it wants more tourists this Summer it should make things as easy as possible for other orange countries since it doesn’t want anyone from a red country and the green countries won’t come. Hope that’s clear.

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TRAVEL NEWS

German train strike wave to end following new labour agreement

Germany's Deutsche Bahn rail operator and the GDL train drivers' union have reached a deal in a wage dispute that has caused months of crippling strikes in the country, the union said.

German train strike wave to end following new labour agreement

“The German Train Drivers’ Union (GDL) and Deutsche Bahn have reached a wage agreement,” GDL said in a statement.

Further details will be announced in a press conference on Tuesday, the union said. A spokesman for Deutsche Bahn also confirmed that an agreement had been reached.

Train drivers have walked out six times since November, causing disruption for huge numbers of passengers.

The strikes have often lasted for several days and have also caused disruption to freight traffic, with the most recent walkout in mid-March.

In late January, rail traffic was paralysed for five days on the national network in one of the longest strikes in Deutsche Bahn’s history.

READ ALSO: Why are German train drivers launching more strike action?

Europe’s largest economy has faced industrial action for months as workers and management across multiple sectors wrestle over terms amid high inflation and weak business activity.

The strikes have exacerbated an already gloomy economic picture, with the German economy shrinking 0.3 percent across the whole of last year.

What we know about the new offer so far

Through the new agreement, there will be optional reduction of a work week to 36 hours at the start of 2027, 35.5 hours from 2028 and then 35 hours from 2029. For the last three stages, employees must notify their employer themselves if they wish to take advantage of the reduction steps.

However, they can also opt to work the same or more hours – up to 40 hours per week are possible in under the new “optional model”.

“One thing is clear: if you work more, you get more money,” said Deutsche Bahn spokesperson Martin Seiler. Accordingly, employees will receive 2.7 percent more pay for each additional or unchanged working hour.

According to Deutsche Bahn, other parts of the agreement included a pay increase of 420 per month in two stages, a tax and duty-free inflation adjustment bonus of 2,850 and a term of 26 months.

Growing pressure

Last year’s walkouts cost Deutsche Bahn some 200 million, according to estimates by the operator, which overall recorded a net loss for 2023 of 2.35 billion.

Germany has historically been among the countries in Europe where workers went on strike the least.

But since the end of 2022, the country has seen growing labour unrest, while real wages have fallen by four percent since the start of the war in Ukraine.

German airline Lufthansa is also locked in wage disputes with ground staff and cabin crew.

Several strikes have severely disrupted the group’s business in recent weeks and will weigh on first-quarter results, according to the group’s management.

Airport security staff have also staged several walkouts since January.

Some politicians have called for Germany to put in place rules to restrict critical infrastructure like rail transport from industrial action.

But Chancellor Olaf Scholz has rejected the calls, arguing that “the right to strike is written in the constitution… and that is a democratic right for which unions and workers have fought”.

The strikes have piled growing pressure on the coalition government between Scholz’s Social Democrats, the Greens and the pro-business FDP, which has scored dismally in recent opinion polls.

The far-right AfD has been enjoying a boost in popularity amid the unrest with elections in three key former East German states due to take place later this year.

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