In the News: Édouard Philippe half-opens France on Monday

Audio 00:04

French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe presents the details of the end of confinement imposed to curb the spread of coronavirus disease (Covid-19), at the Matignon hotel in Paris, France on May 7, 2020. Christophe Archambault / Pool via REUTERS

By: Norbert Navarro

Publicity

Édouard Philippe "  opens the door a bit  ", launches in a Le Figaro , the Prime Minister "  slowly deconfines a France cut in half  ", complete with a joyful alliteration this daily. Finally! (…) It was time,  ”exclaims Le Figaro, as one pushes an“  egg  ”of relief, by inviting its readers to“  keep reason  ”in the face of the risks of new contamination. Because if, of course, "  being brave, the" clever "would be irresponsible  ", Le Figaro believes that "  refusing the slightest risk would be just as much  ".

Of course, admits this newspaper, it is a “  supervised freedom  ” that the French are preparing to recover, but they are “  more informed than any human being has ever been in history  ”. This means that they “  know the precautions that must accompany each step. We bet they will take them so as not to have to turn back,  "predicts Le Figaro.

Freedom monitored? On May 11, it is indeed in “  conditional freedom  ” that they will be, the French, Liberation formula (it's the same thing). For the rest this morning, this daily newspaper takes up the “ headline  ” formula  of the Figaro : the door is “  ajar  ”.

Libé recalls the "  good news  " announced yesterday by the French Prime Minister, that of the beginning of a return to normal, but he also underlines the "  bad  " admitted by Edouard Philippe, that of a country that remains "  divided in two  " in which a "  turning back  " remains "  possible  ".

In Libé , the deputy LREM Laurent Saint-Martin agrees, France, as of Monday, enters "  into a different world, in which there are uncertainties. We have to accept that the government is trying things  . ” And while France's neighbors are coming out of their confinement, an executive adviser notes in this newspaper that "  France could not remain the irreducible little village of confined people  ".

France takes the plunge

In Liberation Always, a doctor in charge of public assistance estimates that  the number of lives that containment has helped save  100,000 ” while barely avoiding the overwhelming nature of resuscitation services. Nicolas Hoertel, that's his name, ensures that "  contrary to what some people claim, extending it would have been useless  ". On the strength of a mathematically highly modeled study, this scientist declares that, in any case, "  postponing deconfinement only shifts the second peak in time  ".

For its part, the daily Le Parisien confirms and underlines the expression used by the French Prime Minister yesterday, when Édouard Philippe spoke of the "  crest line  " on which his government is advancing. With, on both sides, two formidable precipices  ", warns this newspaper: the economic crisis but also "  the general impoverishment which will intervene  ".

In the meantime , Le Parisien finds  the map of France of deconfinement clear and clean ", and if this newspaper yesterday well noted the "  marked features  " of French ministers, it gives satisfaction to the government for having thus managed to fix the "  instructions for use  ”from deconfinement to the date set by Emmanuel Macron.

The scandal of the burnt masks

Something new in the “  mask case  ” of virus protection in France. Whole stocks of masks have been burned, reports Le Monde . In the midst of the Covid-19 crisis, while France was confined, the Prime Minister's advisers, Edouard Philippe, discovered, dismayed, that for several weeks, millions of masks from state reserves, a significant part of which had been doubt usable, (were) conscientiously burned…  ”.

The evening daily also affirms that “  the current power (…) carries a heavy share of responsibility. […] At the start of (the former Socialist Minister of Health) Marisol Touraine (…) the state reserves very precisely house 714 million surgical masks. Among these, 616 million dating mainly from 2005 and 2006, but without expiration date, the remaining 98 million having been acquired between 2014 and 2016. However, in March 2020, there will remain only 117 million . In less than three years, stocks have been divided by six!  "States Le Monde .

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