Coronavirus: small apartment or second home, it's not the same confinement

Text by: RFI Follow

Depending on whether they own a second home or not, the French in large cities are not all confined to the same sign. In small apartments, you have to organize yourself between children and telecommuting. For second homes, however, places are expensive: some town halls on the coast have taken measures to prevent an influx of people that is too large for their health services.

Publicity

Already almost a week that the French are confined to their homes to try to stop the spread of the coronavirus. For those who live in small apartments in big cities like Paris, this is not always easy. Example in this building in the 18th arrondissement, in the north of the French capital, where our journalist Marine de la Moissonnière lives. The locals are lucky to have a small garden, which they take turns to use.

Anthony hasn't been out on the street for three days. Between two telework sessions, he takes care of the garden. " I turned the earth around a bit. I cleaned. I repotted some plants. We are really privileged here. "

The garden is also Alma's refuge, a year and a half, when it is empty. When one of her parents needs calm to work, the other goes down with her. Pierre-Alexis, the father, recognizes it: it is not easy.

" We try to work and juggle everyone's obligations," he explains. One works for about an hour, an hour and a half - so short periods -, while the other keeps the little one. And then we alternate. And as soon as there is a work priority for one of us, it takes precedence over our family life, because there is no choice. "

Reading by Jules Vernes

On the 4th floor, Sylvain, also telecommuting, has adapted his hobbies: “ I have been rediscovering the great novels of Jules Verne for a few weeks. So maybe reading Jules Verne's integral will be faster than I thought. I also have old movies and DVDs. The morale is good. I am not in contact with the public. I am not a cashier in a supermarket or forced to welcome people, where there must still be fears. For the moment everything is well ! "

The inhabitants of this building take things with philosophy. Some meet at 8 p.m. in the evening to thank the nursing staff. A round of applause and cheers that can last several minutes.

Restricted access in the majority of the Ponant islands, in Brittany

Other Ile-de-France residents have chosen to join their second home, for those who have one, in order to live this period of confinement without remaining locked up in small apartments. Faced with this influx, exceptional for the season, mayors have decided to issue municipal decrees.

This is the case in the majority of the 15 Ponant islands, located near the northwest coast of the English Channel to the Atlantic Ocean. Access has been restricted to permanent residents only and to personnel performing public service missions. It is therefore impossible for owners of second homes on the islands of Ouessant, Groix or Yeu to take a boat to reach their holiday home.

Rotations have also been limited: two per day to Groix instead of 5, with only 100 passengers on board. On this island, located in Finistère, more than 50% of the dwellings are second homes. The health structures are not adapted to the current crisis, according to the municipality.

Like on the island of #Groix! All those who have a second home come to take refuge there! They don't think of the often elderly islanders! #confinement # CODIV_19 https://t.co/vgeqRfN40z

► Read also : The anxiety and discontent on the rise of the French, slammed, on the front page of the French press

Limited health services and planned evacuations

In Belle-Ile-en-Mer, further south, in Morbihan, no such measures have been taken. Reached by our journalist Marie Casadebaig , the mayor of the commune of the Palace, Frédéric Le Gars, specifies that the island has not been invaded, as some residents feared. Between Sunday 14 and Tuesday noon March 16, the beginning of confinement, 600 passengers disembarked, increasing the number of inhabitants from 5,400 to 6,000.

The containment measures then stopped the arrivals. Nothing impossible to manage for Frédéric Le Gars. " The island has a nursing home," he recalls, " but in the event of suspected coronavirus, patients will be automatically evacuated to the hospital in Vannes, on the mainland. "

Like Belle-Île, Ouessant was not invaded by secondary residents. Its mayor Denis Palluel, also president of the association of the islands of Ponant, justifies the municipal decrees. “ We are very happy to welcome people during the tourist season. But here we are in a somewhat exceptional situation! You have to make do with limited resources. On food, of course, we are entirely dependent on the continent. And we know that the people who arrived, if we had opened the floodgates, well they would not leave. Especially since the sanitary services on site are limited. In Ouessant, there is only one doctor. "

► Read also: The National Assembly gives the green light to the state of health emergency in France

Newsletter With the Daily Newsletter, find the headlines directly in your mailbox

Download the app

• Coronavirus
• France

On the same subject

Containment in France: controls reinforced during the weekend

Morning guest

Coronavirus: "Failure to respect containment will lead to additional deaths"