A man at his window at night in Madrid.

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Bruno Thevenin / SIPA

  • The executive is considering new binding measures to stem the Covid-19 epidemic in France.

  • Travel bans at night could be announced throughout the country or only in large cities, as has been done in Guyana in particular.

  • 20 Minutes

    interviewed a specialist in the analysis and management of health risk situations on this subject.

Emmanuel Macron will address the French this Wednesday evening to talk about the rebound of the Covid-19 epidemic.

He is expected to announce new binding measures.

"All the options are on the table," said the president's entourage.

All of them, including a curfew, which could only affect the largest cities, where contamination is increasing.

This device prohibits movement on public roads at night, according to variable schedules.

It would aim to limit social interactions in the private sphere, but would also have consequences on nocturnal economic activities.

20 minutes

consulted Michèle Legeas, teacher at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en santé publique, a specialist in the analysis and management of health risk situations, on the effectiveness of this measure.

Is a curfew effective in limiting contamination?

I would first like to say that it is more a police measure than a health measure.

When you impose a curfew, you want to prevent people from moving to gather in private places, which they tend to do all the more when bars and restaurants are closed.

With such a measure, if it were to be adopted, the government would want people to put themselves in lockdown within their private sphere, but without shutting down the economy.

Does this limit the circulation of a virus?

No study can demonstrate this for the coronavirus.

The hypothesis, made for example by the Spaniards, is that by keeping people in a “bubble”, with social interactions limited to those very close to them, we reduce the risk of transmission.

Do we know if the risk of transmission is higher at night, during our leisure activities, than during the day, when we go to work or study, often by taking transport?

Unfortunately, there are no studies that allow us to be certain on this point.

If we knew that it is in the evening, in our nocturnal activities, that most of the transmissions take place, then the curfew is a good answer.

But it is not really known when and how the transmission of the coronavirus takes place, beyond the fact that it is very much linked to spending time in the immediate vicinity of someone who is a carrier.

The effectiveness of a possible curfew therefore remains questionable.

However, we can now see that the coronavirus circulates a lot in France in the 15-45 age group.

It is assumed that this age group comes out at night.

This gives rise to a mixing of population, and also to a relaxation of barrier gestures, in festive contexts.

By restricting movement at night, we can hope to prevent such situations.

Which amounts to partial confinement: we are not confined during the day, on our working hours, but we are confined in the evening on our free time.

Isn't it inconsistent to impose a curfew without calling on companies to return to telecommuting as the norm, as in the first wave?

At the time, we were in a state of health emergency.

In a general law regime, it is more complex.

But in my opinion, a possible curfew is very questionable, since a part of the employees of the necessary services, as they were called during the confinement, work partly on the night hours.

Do we know if the curfew imposed in Guyana was a key factor in improving the health situation?

The problem is that we cannot establish a certain correlation since the curfew was not the only measure imposed in Guyana to contain the virus.

In France, the government has taken many measures, adding new ones every week.

It is therefore very difficult to try to measure the impact of each of them and to say whether one measure works is more effective than another, taken in isolation.

The total containment of almost the entire population, it works, we have seen it in France and in other countries, but for the other measures, it is difficult to assess.

Such a curfew, which lasted for months, imposed from 5 p.m. on weekdays at the peak of the epidemic, is it realistic in metropolitan France?

No, i dont think so.

We don't live in Guyana like in mainland France.

In addition, the populations that were most affected by the circulation of the virus in the spring were those who had to continue working, in particular by taking public transport, and often victims of poor housing.

These populations often work at night.

Does that mean that we once again accept that they are more exposed?

Having a night-time curfew, while knowing that part of the population will continue to be exposed, that questions.

In the majority, it is considered that the curfew is a recourse because the French have not yet agreed to modify their social life.

I find the messages are not clear.

We are forced to wear the mask outdoors, but since it is very difficult to wear it from morning to night, the first thing we do when we get home is take it off.

Yet it is often in these closed environments, so in particular with the family, with some who have gone to school, others at work, that the risks of transmission persist, even with a curfew.

A joint report by the Chinese CDC [Center for Disease Control and Prevention] joint report by the Chinese CDC [, in February 2020, showed that from the moment Wuhan was very strictly contained, new cases of Covid-19 were due to transmissions in the family circle.

The best precaution, even with the family, is to maintain a distance, if possible of the order of 1.5 meters, to talk, play, laugh, things not to forget!

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  • Curfew

  • Health

  • epidemic

  • Covid 19

  • Coronavirus