DECONFINEMENT: Organising deconfinement on a 2km2 territory is “much easier”, we recognize on the side of the Monaco Principality
- The deconfinement is started since this Monday in the principality of Monaco.
- Shops are reopening, classes will only be accessible again from May 11th and, initially, only for students who take exams.
With a week ahead of France, the hour of progressive deconfinement struck Monday in Monaco, where the hairdressers are taken by storm, but where tourists are likely to be delayed for a while. “It’s nice, it’s back on the road,” says a seller of ready-to-wear.
But a sign that the recovery remains gradual, difficulties of access to Monaco are not yet in order. One in six employees works from home, which has enabled Monaco’s financial centre not to remain dormant during confinement.
The government of Monaco, which will maintain telework “as long as necessary” lifted the containment earlier than in France for “very pragmatic” reasons, said the Minister of Social Affairs. On the spot, the Covid-19 made only four deaths and “the epidemic peak has passed” on the spot, advance Didier Gamerdinger. Then, making decisions for a 2km2 territory is also “much easier,” he says.
Wider hours at the hairdresser
At Tita Coiffure, on the Rock, the first customer refuses any interview: “Ah, no! It’s my moment of relaxation, I’ve been waiting for this for two months, ”she exclaims. Carolina, the hairdresser, hands him the newspaper: “Here, nobody has touched him yet”.
She came on May 1 to clean everything, to space the armchairs, anxious to see how it was going to happen: “Will the mask annoy customers? We have to make the cuts, the colours, we wet the elastic a bit… ”. Carolina is overflowing with appointments for the week and had to plan “wider time slots to have time to disinfect everything between each client”.
For his two children, “it’s the daddy” who takes care. Monaco has no plans to immediately reopen nurseries and kindergartens. Priority was given to students taking exams, by half-classes, with masks and only from May 11th.
Si la Principauté a levé aujourd’hui son confinement le plus strict, les contrôles d’accès aux frontières n’ont pas disparu, aussi bien du côté monégasque que français.
© Direction de la Communication / Michael Alesi pic.twitter.com/dDNFr10Npm
— Gouvernement Monaco (@GvtMonaco) May 4, 2020
“Try to survive”
At the Principality’s chocolate maker, Lotfi Maktouf, the owner, balances the Easter eggs and rabbits that he could not sell or deliver during confinement. Near the Palace, where Prince Albert II healed in fifteen days of the Covid-19, pessimism points on the other hand to the traders who bring out their display racks of souvenirs, bags, caps, T-shirts with “Monaco” logo.
“It’s the first day we can get some fresh air, it’s sunny … we’re not going to moan. But I’m a little worried, ”admits one of them. “We will try to survive,” he adds. He already has a quarterly late rent, 11,000 euros. “We will try to count on the French who will come to see us this summer,” says a neighbouring employee. “But you have to open it, it ventilates and you have to put in place the marking on the ground, the panels”.
In addition to the cancellation of the F1 Grand Prix and sporting and cultural events, cruises and tour buses do not stop over until further notice. Not to mention the frozen international flights to Nice airport.
