65 French are among the passengers of this plane coming from Wuhan in China. They will be confined for 14 days in the south of France.
A second plane chartered by Paris to bring back from Wuhan 250 people, including 65 French, landed Sunday 2nd February 2020 afternoon in Bouches-du-Rhône, where a part of them, in particular, the French, will be placed in containment.
The aircraft, an A380, landed at around 2:30 p.m. at the Istres military base, where 180 people repatriated from China had already landed on Friday.
As on the previous flight, none of the passengers showed symptoms of the infection with the new coronavirus that appeared in Wuhan, where they boarded, departing from the plane, assured Adrien Taquet, Secretary of State to the Minister of health.
Including the French, the passengers are of 30 different nationalities, said during a broadcast on RTL / LCI / Le Figar o the Minister of Foreign Affairs Jean-Yves Le Drian, adding that there were “many Europeans “.
“The countries concerned, for a large part of them, will allow us to ensure an edge to edge allowing the return of these people to the countries of origin”
The foreign minister also praised “remarkable” cooperation with the Chinese authorities. “All the French who have asked to be repatriated are,” he said, adding that the repatriation of French diplomatic personnel was not on the agenda.
In Paris, a large inter-ministerial meeting is to take place Sunday evening around the Prime Minister on the subject of the coronavirus.
The A380 which landed in Istres was then to take off for Belgium, according to a diplomatic source in Brussels. The aircraft will then take Belgian nationals of other nationalities to Melsbroek military airport, according to the same source.
Training centre
Part of the people who arrived in Istres on Sunday, families in priority, will be taken care of in the holiday centre of Carry-le-Rouet, a seaside resort close to Marseille, where almost 180 people who have already arrived from Wuhan on Friday are in quarantine. , said the authorities.
The Red Cross, which manages the logistics and animation of this site since Friday, said that there remained “fifty accommodation places”. In the early afternoon, toiletries had been prepared there for future new arrivals, said one of the three AFP journalists who have been confined there since their return from Wuhan.
Other returnees will be placed in quarantine in Aix-en-Provence, in a school of fire officers, Ensosp, which can accommodate more than 500 people. Secretary of State Adrien Taquet, who visited the training centre on Sunday, assured that everything was “ready” there.
The Ensosp, fully enclosed and screened, is located in a rural area, away from homes, about ten kilometres from downtown Aix-en-Provence.
First “surprised” by the choice of her town, Maryse Joissains-Masini, the mayor LR of Aix, assured Sunday want to “be united”. She said access to the site was drastically monitored, and total containment: “everything is done internally, nothing comes out”. The town hall will organize an information meeting for the residents of the neighbourhood on Tuesday morning.
Sea urchin platter
In Carry-le-Rouet where the first returnees – mostly French – have been confined for two days in a holiday centre, locals and tourists celebrated the first day of the traditional “sea urchin” festival on Sunday. A local restaurateur even offered a tray of sea urchins to the confined people.
The Secretary of State to the Minister of Health assured Sunday that the arrival of new people from China in this centre located in the middle of a pine forest, in a cove, poses no risk of contagion for people already present and would not lengthen the duration of their confinement.
Since January 24th, six cases of patients infected with the new coronavirus have been confirmed in France. They are all hospitalized, one in Bordeaux and five in Paris, including two in intensive care.
An increasing number of countries have decided to close their borders with China, while the coronavirus epidemic has already killed more than 300 people, including the first death recorded outside China, in the Philippines. The human-to-human coronavirus has infected more than 14,000 people in China and has spread to 24 countries.
