A police check by the border police (PAF), November 2020. -
Alain ROBERT / SIPA
Are health controls going to be imposed even within the borders of the European Union?
The idea should be discussed this Thursday at the European Council and could be supported by France.
Government spokesman Gabriel Attal said on Wednesday that the executive was "in favor of health checks being carried out at intra-European borders" to face the danger of the Covid-19 variant.
"Since the start of this epidemic, we have taken measures to ensure controls at our borders", he also stressed, recalling that "the external borders of the European Union with France have been closed since the month of March 2020 ”.
A position also supported by German Chancellor Angela Merkel if the situation deteriorates.
Variants that worry
"Those and those who can join our country from countries outside the European Union are French nationals for almost all of them, and they must perform a negative PCR test before embarking to France, and s 'commit to observing a seven-day isolation,' he insisted.
Berlin for its part is particularly concerned about the importation of variants of the much more contagious virus, which have appeared in Great Britain and South Africa.
"If countries were to take completely different paths, which I don't see at the moment but which can also be the case, then we have to be prepared to the extreme and say then that we must also reintroduce border controls" , the Chancellor said at a press conference, after eight hours of negotiations with the leaders of regional states which resulted in an extension and tightening of anti-Covid restrictions.
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