Marseille (AFP)
The total closure of bars and restaurants, announced Wednesday by the Minister of Health for the Aix-Marseille metropolis, will only target the cities of Marseille and Aix-en-Provence, from Sunday evening, specified the prefectural decree published on Sunday.
In these two towns, in "maximum alert zone" in the face of Covid-19, bars and restaurants will have to close their doors this Sunday at midnight and until October 11 inclusive, except for possible delivery and sales activities at take away, according to the decree signed by the prefect of Bouches-du-Rhône Christophe Mirmand.
These measures could be "re-examined" before the deadline of October 11, foresees this decree, by arranging "a review in eight days" based on the epidemic indicators of the Regional Health Agency of the Paca region.
These new measures therefore do not concern the 90 other municipalities of the Aix-Marseille-Provence metropolis, an area of 3,000 km2 for 1.8 million inhabitants.
This development had already filtered Friday after the meeting between Minister Olivier Véran and several elected officials of the department at the prefecture in Marseille.
At the end of this meeting, the LR president of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region, Renaud Muselier, had also announced that the implementation of these new directives was postponed to Sunday instead of Saturday.
The closure of bars and restaurants will certainly affect fifteen other municipalities in the department, La Ciotat, Arles, Gardanne or Martigues in particular.
But, in these cities, these establishments will only have to close between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m.
These measures unveiled Wednesday by Mr. Véran had triggered the anger of professionals and many elected officials of the Aix-Marseille-Provence metropolis and in particular of the first deputy mayor of Marseille, Benoît Payan, who had spoken of "an affront" to the second largest city in France.
If some managers of bars or restaurants in Marseille and Aix threatened to defy this new ban on opening, the departmental president of the Union of trades and hospitality industries clearly advised them against Sunday, on the air of France Bleu Provence: "Otherwise some of them will be punished and we will have all the difficulties to defend them", warned Bernard Marty, announcing on the other hand "legal and physical actions in the hours or days to come".
According to the latest press release from the AP-HM (Public Assistance Hospitals of Marseille) on Saturday, 177 Covid-19 patients are hospitalized across the city, including 43 in intensive care out of 90 resuscitation beds available in total.
They were 21 including 3 in intensive care on August 14 and 135 including 29 in intensive care on September 15, specifies the AP-HM.
According to figures from the AP-HM transmitted Thursday evening to AFP, the incidence rate of Covid-19 in Marseille was 281 per 100,000 on September 20, down however compared to 331 per 100,000 a week earlier .
It is in particular this figure, very clearly higher than the national average of 100 per 100,000, which led to placing the Marseille region in "maximum alert zone".
© 2020 AFP