REPORTAGE
Are the French ready to play the game by wearing the mask in all enclosed public places, to avoid a second wave of coronavirus epidemic? The Prime Minister intends to make this precaution mandatory by decree, as of Monday, while the Minister of Health Olivier Véran urges the population to apply it by itself now. Europe 1 went to meet the inhabitants of Strasbourg, in a Grand Est region particularly affected by the health crisis, and where this measure seems to be obvious.
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"Better to be too vigilant than not enough"
"We were just waiting for that": in the streets of the city, not one resident questioned opposes the wearing of the mask. "It's annoying, but I prefer to be annoyed than to die. Better to be too vigilant than not enough," illustrates a passerby at our microphone. Another now hopes "that everyone follows the instructions, that everyone puts on their mask where it is needed without asking the question". "You don't always have to wait for political authorities," she said. "We have said enough that there were not enough masks, so now that there are ..."
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Some Strasbourg residents also point to the slackening observed in Alsace as elsewhere, and which pushed the government to accelerate. "I was at the supermarket this morning, there were a lot of people who no longer wore it," laments a man, in favor of tightening a screw.
"This is a measure that should have been taken a long time ago"
The same goes for a bell in a clothing store near the famous cathedral. "It was time they made it mandatory, it is a measure that should have been taken a long time ago," says the manager, who already requires that his customers wear the mask. "But generally, they do it on their own. For the client, it's protecting him and protecting us." In the same logic, the merchant requests, although there is no legal requirement, that consumers do without hydroalcoholic gel on their hands before touching clothes.
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