In the spotlight: new turn of the screw

Audio 04:37

Tourists wearing masks against Covid-19 in the Old port, in Marseille, August 26, 2020. Christophe SIMON / AFP

By: Frédéric Couteau Follow

9 min

Publicity

The government is stepping up its measures to fight against the coronavirus epidemic which is starting again in France.

France, which will now be divided into several alert zones - red, enhanced alert and maximum alert - within which the restrictions, reassessed every fortnight, can be tightened in order to curb the spread of the Covid-19 epidemic.

Among the maximum alert zones: Guadeloupe and Bouches-du-Rhône.

The punishment

 " exclaims

La Provence

on the front page.

“ 

Yesterday, the Minister of Health, Olivier Véran, declined the implacable effects of this special treatment,

sighs the Marseille daily,

like a cold diagnosis uttered without affect, with the accents of an authoritarian takeover by the State: total closure of bars and restaurants from Saturday;

closure of places open to the public if they have not already established a strict health protocol, such as theaters and restaurants which can therefore remain open.

It's a violent backlash,

throw again

Provence, even the feeling of a step back in time, towards the locked epochs of spring and the beginnings of confinement.

A punishment, say elected officials.

 "

Like the mayor of Marseille, Michèle Rubirola, who expresses her anger in the columns of the newspaper: " 

I do not understand why the government made such decisions,

" she said.

They are disproportionate to the reality of the situation in Marseille.

The incidence rate decreases, the virus positivity rate stabilizes.

[…] Barrier gestures are respected and efficiency is proven.

And now we condemn Marseille, only Marseille.

 "

Green wood or bad pastis

?

“ 

There is something to turn red with confusion.

Or scarlet with anger,

comments

La Charente Libre.

Or as green as a flight of wood in Marseille which closes up bars and restaurants on Saturday.

The feeling also of being a little yellow cuckold, deceived by a declaration of the day before which leaves the following day to furnish the bed crumpled by other successive truths.

[…] The virus is no longer dangerous in classes locked up at thirty all day, but,

exclaims the Charente daily,

it instantly threatens the walker of a bright red metropolitan street, where it is necessary stop going out at 10 p.m.

Because afterwards, the virus, nice until then, turns into a filthy beast, devastating everything in its path, starting with bars?

Of course, public health issues are complicated and there is no such thing as a quick fix otherwise the whole world would have straddled it.

But,

concludes

La Charente Libre, these contradictory statements have a devastating effect

: that of discrediting any advertisement.

 "

The Parisian

does not agree: “ 

It is with civility that we must unite.

Not around the bad pastis of vain controversies over the closure of restaurants and bars in Marseille,

says

Le Parisien.

Tuesday,

recalls the newspaper,

Boris Johnson, the British Prime Minister, decided, without trembling, to pull the grid of all the pubs from 10 p.m. from this evening.

By calling on its people, hard hit by the Covid-19, to discipline and team spirit

.

"

There is no more after ...

Also on the front page, the disappearance of Juliette Greco.

Juliette Greco, we loved you

 ", launches

Liberation

on the front page, with this black and white photo, where we see the singer, from the back, adjusting her long black dress, just before entering the scene.

“ 

Post-war icon of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, known for its elegance as well as for its freedom of tone, close to Jacques Prévert, Boris Vian or Miles Davis, Juliette Greco had given her long black silhouette a place except on the French scene.

 "

The Greco alchemy

,"

Liberation

continues

, tapered in a half-proud half-sulky posture lesson, whispering the famous

Undress me

with accents of French Marlene Dietrich, will remain through its freedom of action, its choices, its career in the United States, her jazz acquaintances, a feminine and feminist emblem willingly describing herself as "a motionless bougeuse" with this consummate art of paradox.

 "

Le Monde

wonders: " 

What did we like so much about Gréco that his disappearance affects us so much?"

His voice, his elegance, his strength and his hands, surely, which flew, twirled!

Juliette as a child had perhaps dreamed herself thus, long and strong in a black scabbard, her hands airy, dressing

Jacques Brel's

J'arrive

with an aura of luminous sorrows and declarations of injustice - death, supreme incomprehension.

 "

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