The French government is set to unveil new restrictions on Thursday amid rising infections and hospital saturation in the Paris region and in the north of the country.
Prime Minister Jean Castex will hold a briefing on the situation in France and outline new restrictions at 19:00 CET.
Many expect the region that includes Paris, île-de-France, could be placed under new restrictions such as a weekend lockdown (similar to what was instituted in Nice, along some of the coast, in Dunkirk and in the Pas-de-Calais department) or a full lockdown.
It comes a day after French President Emmanuel Macron travelled to a hospital in Poissy, in the suburbs of Paris, to speak with health workers. One health worker told the president that the situation was worrying with younger people being admitted to the hospital.
Macron said on Wednesday that the crisis was going to “hit very hard until mid-April,” according to multiple French media.
Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo said in an interview with TV5Monde on Thursday that she felt that the two scenarios proposed by the government would be “difficult” for people.
She said that she had spoken with Prime Minister Castex on Wednesday night to ask questions about whether these proposed measures would be effective or not.
Hidalgo said many people live in small apartments and will need to be able to walk outside in the region too.
“We cannot either reduce people to just work and go home,” she said, stating that a weekend lockdown seemed “inhuman” but that she would stand with the government whatever they decide.
A complicated COVID-19 situation nationally
France has already implemented a twelve-hour curfew that begins at 18:00 CET after which people are no longer allowed to go outside unless they have a reason such as going to or from work or a medical appointment.
Infections have nonetheless remained high in the country, with a high plateau of more than 20,000 new infections over the past several weeks. That has slowly increased in the past weeks, with the country recording over 38,000 new infections on Wednesday.
Public Health France said in its latest epidemiological summary that 66% of infections in France were due to the more transmissible UK variant. Five per cent of cases are due to other more transmissible variants.
Throughout the country, the percentage of people in intensive care compared to the number of beds originally in place is at around 83%. In the Ile-de-France region, it’s at 101%, according to the French COVID-19 surveillance application Tous Anti Covid.
The government ramped up COVID vaccinations in the capital but it has not gone fast enough, many say, amid criticism of the overall European vaccination strategy.
So far, 5.5 million people in the country have received a first jab, representing about 8.3% of the total population.