Lacanau beach, May 17, 2020 (illustration) - UGO AMEZ / SIPA

  • Summer requires, outdoor gatherings are multiplying in France, despite the threat of Covid-19.
  • Several Internet users relaying photos of crowds gathered in the open air, whether on the docks or at the beach, are worried about a resumption of the epidemic thanks to these events.
  • 20 Minutes takes stock of the authenticity of photos supposed to have been taken in Paris and Lacanau on the weekend of July 18.

Despite the more than 500 kilometers that separate them, Paris (Ile-de-France) and Lacanau (Gironde) were the scene of two similar controversies, which occurred a few days apart on social networks.

Photos showing a large number of people respectively gathered on a dock and on a beach have indeed aroused criticism from many Internet users, alarming at potential Covid-19 clusters - a concern far from new in the face of this kind of outdoor gatherings.

“Welcome to Coronavirus Plage […] Yesterday evening at Paris Plages”, denounces a Facebook post posted on July 18, which shows a crowd gathered as far as the eye can see, all along the quay, mainly along the Seine, at next to a few people seated, and for the great majority without masks.

“When I see this photo on Lacanau beach in Gironde last Sunday, I am sickened by the stupidity of people !! It should come as no surprise that new homes are appearing, ”regretted for its part the Facebook post showing a very dense crowd on part of the Gironde beach, and another area with respected physical distancing.

If the photo taken in Paris is slightly taken out of its context, the photographs of Lacanau are authentic and correctly dated. We take stock.

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Despite its success, the Facebook post on “Paris Plages” is not the first to have relayed the image, since it had been posted on Twitter from 9:30 pm the day before, by an Internet user calling out to the police headquarters: “Good evening @prefpolice how can we tolerate this kind of event? Photo taken on the Quai de Seine at Place du Châtelet just now »

Good evening @prefpolice how can we tolerate this kind of event? Photo taken on the Quai de Seine at Place du Chatelet at the moment #coronavirus # COVID__19 pic.twitter.com/NLMevlsbNP

- Wanda Saint-Paul (@WandaStPaul) July 17, 2020

Contacted by 20 Minutes , Wanda Saint-Paul specifies having taken the photo "at 9:22 p.m. on July 17" - as we have been able to verify on the data in the file - and explains what motivated her tweet: "It is not so much the world in itself which shocked me, but the inconsistencies in the sanitary measures that are taken, since in the southwest, for example, férias have been banned and bars forced to close earlier. "

The date of the shooting confirms that the event could not be taken at Paris Plages since the summer event did not start until the next day, July 18.

On the other hand, the Georges Pompidou route, located a few steps from the Place du Châtelet, hosted that evening "FridayX sur Seine", a "giant LGBT aperitif open to everyone", organized every weekend in spring and summer, as the event website indicates.

In addition to Google Street View, which shows that the photo was taken at this level of the Georges Pompidou route, we find the two red and yellow “sails” located to the left and right of the quay on a photo of the installation “ FridayX sur Seine ”posted on Facebook.

Finally, a report produced on site by CNews the same evening (visible below) definitively identifies the places. We even see at one point (at 0'43) the quay, filmed from the heights, probably from the bridge where the viral photo was also taken.

A preventive suspension of the evenings

Three days after the evening, “FridayX sur Seine”, which until now clearly indicated on its site, the health measures to be observed during these gatherings, while recalling the scientific knowledge around Covid-19 and its modes of transmission , announced the suspension until further notice of its various summer evenings.

Maurice, one of the three co-organizers of the event, specifies to 20 Minutes that this is a “prevention” measure: “In normal times, excluding Covid-19, we meet from 300 to 600 people on Wednesday, and 300 to 1,500 people on Friday, always with a peak of people around 9 p.m. Initially, when the evenings resumed at the end of June, there were a lot less people, people could spread out on the quays. But there was a spike in visits to the site after "FridayX sur Seine" was mentioned on M6 and BFMTV, with three to four times as many people, especially on the pages of the next events, so we preferred to cancel by prevention, linked to Covid-19 but above all for global security, for fear of having too many people gathered under this bridge, knowing that we have already had a case of paving stones thrown over the crowd ”.

“It is a benevolent event which aims to unite. We had waited to observe how the other outdoor events unfolded for several weeks before relaunching these evenings ourselves, after making sure that there was no case of an outdoor cluster ”, adds- he, specifying that this decision was taken jointly by the three organizers, without "any external pressure", and that it was "well received by the customers".

As indicated at the end of June at 20 Minutes two specialists questioned on the possibilities of transmission of Covid-19 during outdoor gatherings, if this risk is indeed present on this occasion, it remains much less than in an enclosed space.

Authentic photos of Lacanau, July 19

For their part, the photos supposed to show the crowded Lacanau beach on July 19 are well in line with the legend and the date associated with them since they were taken by Julien Lestage, journalist at Sud Ouest .

Video. Distance from the beach: "In Lacanau, we have 16 km of coastline, make the effort to walk" [Premium 🔑] pic.twitter.com/O6OMJ8UZ30

- South West Bordeaux (@SO_Bordeaux) July 20, 2020

We find them in his article of July 20, which underlined the notable difference in behavior between two areas of the seaside, and the call of an elected representative of the town hall to take advantage of the 16 kilometers of beach available to respect the sanitary distances :

“In Lacanau, last weekend, on the central beach at high tide, the crowd was concentrated in an extremely small area. About two kilometers away, still in the Lacanau sector, the super-south beach, which is also supervised, offered a very different "picture". It was crowded but the umbrellas were spaced out. "

The video also filmed on this occasion (and visible above) makes it possible to see even more clearly how holidaymakers stand at very different distances depending on which part of the beach they are on.

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  • Society
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