Jean Castex and several ministers announced the new restrictive measures which will come into force on midnight Friday, but also a vast plan to help the culture sector
Prime Minister Jean Castex unveiled on Thursday the new restriction measures to fight against the spread of the coronavirus in France. He stressed that these measures come while in recent days, “the situation has continued to deteriorate.”
As expected, several departments have switched to “maximum alert” against the Covid-19, with new curfews to the key.
Curfew extended to 38 new departments and in Polynesia
Jean Castex has extended the curfew to 38 new French departments, as well as to the overseas territory of French Polynesia from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. These curfews come into effect from this Friday midnight and for a period of six weeks. The departments concerned: Ain, Alpes-Maritimes, Ardèche, Ardennes, Ariège, Aube, Aveyron, Bas-Rhin, Calvados, Corse-du-Sud, Côte-d’Or, Drôme, Gard, Hautes-Alpes, Haute-Corse, Haute-Loire, Hautes-Pyrénées, Haute-Savoie, Haute-Vienne, Ille-et-Vilaine, Indre-et-Loire, Jura, Loiret, Lozère, Maine-et-Loire, Marne, Meurthe-et-Moselle, Oise, Pas-de-Calais, Puy-de-Dôme, Pyrénées-Atlantiques, Pyrénées-Orientales, Saône-et-Loire, Savoie, Tarn, Tarn-et-Garonne, Var and Vaucluse.
In total, 54 departments are therefore affected by curfews or 46 million fellow citizens. “It is a graduated and territorialized response”, indicated the Prime Minister who specified that he knew that the virus was circulating in a more or less strong way in these departments. “It is a preventive measure that I assume. ”
A globally respected curfew
The Prime Minister indicated that the curfew, which entered into force for nearly a week in Ile-de-France and eight major cities, was generally well respected by citizens. He said the police had so far carried out more than 32,300 checks for just 4,777 fines for non-compliance with the curfew. “We cannot yet see the effects of the curfew,” said Jean Castex. We will see it next week. He said that depending on the results, the device would be reassessed “to possibly harden it”.
115 million aid for culture
Roselyne Bachelot, the Minister of Culture, announced a series of aid measures granted to the sector, particularly penalized by curfews, to prevent it “collapsing”. 85 million euros will thus be released for live shows and 55 million euros for live musical shows, including 3 million for authors. “The emergency fund for performing artists and technicians will be doubled to reach 10 million euros”, also clarified Roselyne Bachelot.
For cinema, whose 8 p.m. and 10 p.m. screenings represent 50% of turnover, support measures represent 30 million euros. The Minister of Culture announced the creation of a supplement on the price of tickets, paid for by the State, or the replenishment of the operator’s compensation fund.
What about other help?
All the aid measures announced by Bruno Le Maire last week for sectors very affected by the new restrictions such as bars or catering and hotels have been extended to the new departments affected by the curfew.
Measures for other territories
Apart from the 38 new departments which switch to maximum alert, the restrictions do not change and therefore do not relax. Jean Castex thus recalled the maintenance of the ban on gatherings of more than six people on public roads, as well as the maintenance of sanitary restrictions in bars and restaurants. Teleworking is still strongly encouraged.
What is the current health situation?
“The occupancy rate of intensive care beds has exceeded the 44% mark in France”, announced Jean Castex, specifying that this percentage exceeds 50% in Auvergne, Paca, Hauts-de-France and Ile-de-France. France. “The month of November will be trying, we already know it”, he declared before leaving the floor to Olivier Véran, the Minister of Health. The latter recalled that French hospitals have 5,800 places in intensive care. He said it was possible to increase this figure to 7,700 in less than two weeks. Regarding the number of positive cases per day in France, it is on average 25,000: “A figure which doubles every two weeks”.
- An update on the TousAntiCovid application
“The application has not been downloaded enough to be a useful tool in the fight against the coronavirus”, acknowledged Cédric O, Secretary of State for Digital Transition and Electronic Communications. “If there are several million of us to download the application, it can be very useful,” he said, however, encouraging the French to do so, like our German or Anglo-Saxon neighbours. The government has not commented on the future of the Christmas holidays. Olivier Véran refused to make any predictions, indicating once again that “all those who had made them were wrong”.
