Photographer: Benjamin Girette / Bloomberg
Photographer: Benjamin Girette / Bloomberg
The French government is delaying an agonizing decision to close the country once again, reflecting on options to curb new variants of the Covid-19, as the current curfew is considered insufficient.
President Emmanuel Macron “has called for additional analysis” on the spread of the virus before deciding on new restrictions, government spokesman Gabriel Attal said after a defense cabinet meeting on Wednesday. Maintaining the status quo is “unlikely,” as the national curfew from 6 p.m. to 6 p.m. is not doing enough, and a strict blockade is an option that is being raised, he said.
Macron is under pressure to shut down the economy for the third time in less than a year, as doctors and researchers sound the alarm about coronavirus mutations spreading across the country.
However, with a presidential race coming up next year, the French leader must also examine criticism of his handling of the crisis, including a slow start to the vaccination campaign. And as rising UK cases and deaths demonstrate the dangers of new virus variants, riots in the Netherlands against a government curfew show the risks of tighter measures.
Risk of discomfort
Christophe Castaner, head of Macron’s party in the National Assembly, told the newspaper Le Parisien that there was also a risk of “civil disobedience” in France should a new closure be imposed.
Voters are much less hungry for strict measures now than at the start of the pandemic, with 93% of adults approving the first closure, compared to only 67% in favor of a third, according to a recent Elabe opinion poll.
“I know there is fatigue,” Attal said during the press conference. A decision on whether to tighten measures will depend on health indicators, he said.
France’s second blockade began in late October and ended in mid-December with a curfew that was extended earlier this month. It provided only partial relief for the health care system, with hospitalizations and intensive care patients more than five times higher than in August.
Economic contraction
Restaurants, cafes, clubs, theaters, cinemas and sports venues have been closed since October and are being bolstered by government aid, like many areas of the economy.
A third blockade would cause an economic contraction of 10% to 18% compared to pre-crisis levels, according to a study by the Ministry of Finance quoted by Parisien, depending on the severity of the measures. During the first tightest blockade in the spring of 2020, activity contracted by more than a third.
While the government maintains a strong rebound in its economy during the second half of the year, another blockade would threaten its growth forecasts.
Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire on Wednesday described a third closure as a “last resort”. A recent survey by the French statistics agency showed growing concern in households in January, as consumers plan to save more money in difficult times. Consumer sentiment is the lowest since November.
“Let’s see where we are,” Le Maire said. “There’s no hurry”.
The most contagious variant of the UK virus accounted for 9.4% of cases in a positive test analysis in the Paris region between 11 and 21 January. Across France, hospitalizations have risen in the last two weeks to the highest level since early December, and the number of severely ill Covid patients in intensive care exceeded 3,000 this week.
Macron could still make a final decision in the next few days: the defense cabinet, a small united group of ministers that gathers around the president and prime minister, has met over the past weekends.
– With the assistance of Helene Fouquet and William Horobin
(It adds the assessment of the current curfew to the first paragraph, the economic impact of the blockade on the 10th.)