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COVID-19

Covid-19 travel restrictions between France and UK set to be eased

France is ready to ease the strict travel restrictions to and from the UK, the French government spokesman said on Wednesday.

Published: 5 January 2022 14:50 CET
Passengers wait to board a Eurostar train at St Pancras International station in London before new restrictions were imposed on travel to combat the spread of the Omicron variant.
Photo: Tolga Akmen / AFP

Travel restrictions between France and the UK are to be eased, government spokesman Gabriel Attal said in his weekly press briefing.

Speaking after the cabinet meeting, Attal said that the French government had “decided to expand the list of compelling reasons – in particular professional reasons” for travel between the two countries.

And he added that restrictions may be eased even further as early as next week, because “the Omicron variant is affecting both countries in a similar manner”.

He did not, however, go into further detail or give a detailed timeframe.

READ ALSO When is France likely to lift its travel restrictions on the UK?

France banned virtually all travel to and from the UK the weekend before Christmas in a bid to curb the spread of the variant.

READ ALSO ‘Strict and stressful’: What travel between France and UK is like under Covid rules

Under current rules, only those who fit a small number of criteria for ‘essential travel’ can make the trip, and even those who are allowed to travel must complete a large swathe of paperwork.

READ ALSO The 9 essential pieces of paperwork for France-UK travel under new rules

We will update our Travel section as soon as we have more detail on this.

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HEALTH

France’s Covid-19 app to be ‘put to sleep’

France's Covid-tracker app, used for months for the all-important 'health pass' will be switched off today, health officials have confirmed.

Published: 30 June 2023 13:29 CEST
France’s Covid-19 app to be 'put to sleep'

Covid-19 screening in France reaches an important milestone on Friday, June 30th, 2023 – when the TousAntiCovid app is officially ‘put to sleep’.

The app, which was launched in June 2020 as France came out of its first lockdown of the pandemic and has undergone a number of iterations, including as a delivery device for the health pass, will be switched off. 

For most people, this anniversary will pass without mention. Few people have consulted the app in recent months, and it has sat dormant on many smartphones since France’s Covid-19 health pass requirement was suspended in March 2022.

Meanwhile, the Système d’Informations de DEPistage (SI-DEP) interface – which has been informing people about their test results since the Spring of 2020 – is also being shut down on June 30th, as per legal requirements.

The SI-DEP shutdown means that it will also be impossible to retrieve Covid test certificates issued before June 30th, should the need arise. All data held by the database will be “destroyed”, officials have said.

It has handled more than 320 million antigen and PCR tests since it was introduced.

This does not mean that testing for Covid-19 has stopped, or is now unnecessary. As reported recently, more than 1,000 deaths a week in Europe are still caused by the virus.

The shutdown of the national information system does not mean that people in France cannot still book an appointment for an antigen test at a pharmacy, or a PCR test at a laboratory. But the number of people going for testing is declining rapidly. In recent days, according to Le Parisien, just 15,000 people in France took a Covid test – the lowest number, it said, since the pandemic started.

Reimbursement rules for testing changed on March 1st, with only certain categories of people – minors, those aged 65 and over, or immunosuppressed patients – covered for the entire cost of testing.

From Friday, only PCR test results will be transmitted to authorities for data purposes, meaning pharmacists that only offer antigen testing will be locked out of the online interface to record test results.

The reason for the shift in priorities is to maintain “minimal epidemiological surveillance”, the Ministry of Health has reportedly told scientists.

As a result test certificates, showing a positive or negative result, will no longer be issued from July 1st. Since February 1st, anyone taking a test has had to give consent to share their data in order to obtain a certificate. 

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