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HEALTH

French capital braces itself for tighter coronavirus restrictions

Paris was preparing on Sunday to be placed under maximum coronavirus alert as alarming Covid-19 infection numbers appeared to leave the French government little choice but to tighten restrictions in and around the capital.

French capital braces itself for tighter coronavirus restrictions
A restaurant employee removes tables on a terrace in Paris, on September 28, 2020, as bars and restaurants were forced to close earlier in the evening. AFP

Paris's trademark bars and cafes are threatened with complete closure as early as Monday after Health Minister Olivier Veran announced that only improved Covid-19 infection rates could prevent such a step.

If recent trends were confirmed “we'll have no choice”, he warned on Thursday, saying new restrictions would mean “no more family gatherings, no more evenings out, and a total closure of bars”.

But a reprieve looks unlikely after France reported 16,972 new coronavirus cases on Saturday alone, the highest daily number since the country began widespread testing.

Figures from the regional health agency ARS show new coronavirus cases remaining above 250 per 100,000 people in Paris, a threshold triggering the maximum alert protocol which has already hit the southern cities Aix-en-Provence and Marseille and their surroundings, as well as the French overseas territory of Guadeloupe.

“There is no justification for denial,” said the ARS director for the Paris region, Aurelien Rousseau, on Sunday. “The numbers are what they are, and they are weighing heavily,” he tweeted.

'We're French, we love to drink'

Interior minister Gerald Darmanin acknowledged that the looming closure of bars and cafes would be “tough” for everyone concerned.

“We are French, we love to drink, to eat, to live, to smile and to kiss each other,” he told broadcasters LCI and Europe 1 on Sunday. “But we're also doing this because the people want us to,” he added. 

A waiter serves customers at a terrace of a restaurant in Paris, on June 15, 2020. Martin BUREAU / AFP

BFM television on Sunday published a poll saying that 61 percent of people living in Paris and its suburbs were in favour of a complete closure of bars, which are currently authorised to remain open until 10 pm.

Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo told reporters on Sunday that “it's not a done deal, there is still work being done, we're still talking”. But she also conceded that the health situation was “very serious”.

The government has said it will target primarily establishments that “serve alcoholic drinks without food”.

Restaurant owners are still hoping that they can dodge a similar fate, at least for now.

ANALYSIS: Is France heading back into lockdown?

The health authorities are evaluating a proposal submitted by restaurants for voluntary restrictions — including registering the home addresses of their clients and limiting the number of people at each table — before submitting their recommendations to the government.

Other large French cities including Lille, Lyon, Grenoble and Toulouse are also hovering near the maximum alert threshold and similar measures as in the capital could be in store for them, too.

Employer organisation UMIH, which represents cafes, bars, hotels, restaurants, brasseries and discos, has warned that 15 percent of France's 220,000 establishments in the sector are threatened with bankruptcy because of coronavirus restrictions, with up to 250,000 staff facing unemployment.

The government has said it will take every precaution necessary to avoid a new state of emergency that would require a generalised lockdown like the one imposed at the height of the outbreak, from mid-March to mid-May.

The country's total death toll from Covid-19 is 32,198 after recording 49 more fatalities on Saturday.

EXPLAINED: How does France's Covid-19 alert system work?

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HEALTH

France reports nearly 200 cholera cases in Mayotte

Nearly 200 cases of cholera have been reported on the French Indian Ocean island of Mayotte, which is struggling to contain the deadly epidemic.

France reports nearly 200 cholera cases in Mayotte

“As of June 18th, 2024, 193 cases of cholera have been reported in Mayotte,” France’s Santé publique France health agency reported in its weekly update.

Of those, 172 were locally acquired cases, while 21 were in people infected in the neighbouring Comoros archipelago and countries on the African continent.

Cholera is an infectious disease typically causing severe diarrhoea, vomiting and muscle cramps. It spreads easily in unsanitary conditions.

Mayotte, which is home to around 320,000 people, reported its first locally acquired cases of cholera in late April, according to officials in Paris.

Two people have died since the beginning of the epidemic, one of them a three-year-old girl.

Santé publique France warned there was a particularly high risk of transmission in disadvantaged neighbourhoods, “as long as access to drinking water and sanitation is unsatisfactory”.

French authorities have been criticised for failing to secure access to drinking water to prevent a cholera epidemic in its overseas territory.

President Emmanuel Macron called for cholera to be ‘consigned to the past’ when he hosted a summit on Thursday on vaccine production in Africa.

Many parts of Africa have recently seen fatal outbreaks of cholera, which has highlighted the shortage of local vaccine production.

The Comoros, which has been affected by a cholera epidemic for the past four months, has recorded 134 deaths and more than 8,700 cases, according to a report published by local authorities this month.

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