After May 11, beaches freed in New Aquitaine?

• Will holidaymakers and Neo-Aquitans be able to freely enjoy the 720 kilometers of coastline of New Aquitaine from May 11?
• The question is crucial, but neither the Prefect, the President of the Region nor the Secretary of State to the Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs were able to give a precise answer, all of them dreading "a World Cup effect On the beaches after two months of "Stay at home".
• Only the French Surf Federation assures that it will be able to support the return to the water of its champions and its amateurs from May 11, by making sand a simple “place of passage”.

The sun will one day return to New Aquitaine and with it the desire to bask in the pill on the beaches of the Wild Coast or the Arcachon Bay ... closed since March 17. While the start of summer should rhyme with “barrier gesture”, will the “confined liberated” have the chance to take advantage of the sandy expanses of the Canon, Capbreton, Saint-Palais or Tarnos, or 720 kilometers of Neo-Aquitaine coast? Spoiler: it is not won.

This Friday, Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne, Secretary of State to the Minister of Europe and Foreign Affairs, and Alain Rousset, President of the region, co-hosted a teleconference on the consequences of the Covid-19 epidemic in New- Aquitaine. After two hours of discussion, the crucial question of swimming was raised. "At this stage, I am unable to tell you what the regime that will apply to the beaches will be," said Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne. The Australians have reopened with a number of restrictions. You can, for example, have water activities, but no parking on the beach itself. We are looking at what is also being done in Belgium. "

"We will do the same in the four coastal departments"

The secretary of state has slipped, moreover, not being able to give results "even before the expert work of Jean Castex" on the release of confinement is rendered. Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne joined Fabienne Buccio, prefect of Gironde and New Aquitaine there, who, the same morning, assured "to be unable to say at present if we will be able to stroll on the beaches or land on a towel ". “It all depends on the evolution of the epidemic three weeks after the end of confinement. Depending on the curves, we will progress in one direction or the other, detailed the prefect. But we must not forget that the virus will not stop on May 11, that we will live a summer probably without a vaccine. We will have to live with the Covid-19 for a few more months and have the necessary reflexes. "

Since the beginning of containment, the beaches have been monitored by drones, by patrols and by helicopters, offenders have nevertheless been fined from La Rochelle to Biarritz. Tired, the police and the prefecture quickly redoubled their controls to make strollers understand that "confinement was not a vacation". So Fabienne Buccio fears a big relaxation after May 11 and a mass rally on the beaches "if they were reopened too early".

“The subject of beaches will immediately arise for us as of May 11. I would not want a World Cup effect, it would be terrible, said the prefect. All I can say is that we will continue to be consistent in the region and we will do the same in the four coastal departments [Charente-Maritime, Gironde, Landes Pyrénées-Atlantiques]. "

Alain Rousset pleaded for a “controlled reopening”

Exit, therefore, an "à la carte deconfinement", images of crowded beaches that could tempt ex-confined people from Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes or Ile-de-France. To, on the one hand, continue to slow down migratory flows and, on the other hand, to ensure that New Aquitaine remains among the regions relatively spared by Covid-19. "The problem is not so much swimming as the meeting points such as parking lots and places to eat," says Patrick Dehail, medical advisor to the director general of the Regional Health Agency (ARS). We have a very weak "immunization" but which only waits to blaze if we do not continue the strict barrier measures. This is particularly important for this summer. A real control of interregional mobility will be required. "And Fabienne Buccio agrees:" There will be no difference from one department to another to avoid precisely encouraging people to move from one territory to another. "

“We have the lowest immunity rate in France but the tension must remain the same. A deconfinement before the others would not be the right solution. A second wave would be dramatic, ”says the Prefecture of New Aquitaine (@ PrefAquitaine33) 1/2

Friday evening, Alain Rousset also pleaded in favor of a "controlled reopening" and hoped that New Aquitaine could be a "land of experimentation on a reasoned and reasonable reopening". The regional president recalled that the arrival of tourists "could create clusters" in a region where "only" 4.503 confirmed cases of Covid-19 have been identified since the start of the epidemic of new coronavirus.

"Surf near you!" "

As for the French Surf Federation, it is more enthusiastic. On her social networks, she has already announced that she was working "on a return to the practice of surfing for all" from May 11 and "on a return to school post-confinement in compliance with the recommended health rules". However, surfing will not be "as before".

“The president of the French Surf Federation is working on deconfinement, in particular with a medical committee to find out what good dilution it will take to clean the wetsuits. He understood that surfing will no longer be as before, "says the prefect of Nouvelle-Aquitaine.

The sand should only become a “place of passage”. “We must no longer make it a place of sedentary lifestyle. We cross the beach to go surfing and to go home. We do not stay there, "said live on Facebook the president, Jean-Luc Arassus. "We will go surfing without stopping to discuss or watch the waves, neither on the beach, nor in the parking lot, nor on the way back," insisted the FFS, which also explores the track of "regionalization": " We surf on his spot. We don't travel miles by car or bicycle to go to another spot. Our community will be asked to apply this instruction: Surf near you! "

Read our file on the coronavirus

This weekend, FFS claims to be able to support, logistically and legally speaking, the return to the water of 700,000 French surfers from May 11. It is only waiting for the government's "go" to tame the wave.

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