Corks from Brittany to the Mediterranean via the North.

This Wednesday, slowdowns were recorded throughout France.

The reason ?

Snail operations carried out by showmen dissatisfied with still not having a date for resuming their activity, still stopped by the Covid-19 epidemic.

“The fairgrounds have been paralyzed since last October,” lamented Stéphane Dubief, of the Fédération des Forains de France.

"Fairgrounds are clearly threatened and penalized unlike the pedestrian streets of city centers", moved the Federation of fairgrounds of France disappointed that its members are deprived of reopening unlike cultural establishments, shops, circuses and other cafes authorized to resume their activities on Wednesday.

“They left the cinemas and theaters (…) and we who are outside working, we cannot”, denounces Eric Santamans, organizer of a snail operation at the Toulouse North tollgate.

Dozens of kilometers of traffic jams

At midday, dozens of kilometers of traffic jams and slowdowns were recorded on several French highways, according to the company Vinci Autoroutes.

In the North of France, on the A2 motorway, a convoy of fairgrounds at the Hordain toll booth causes disturbances over 4 km in the direction Brussels / Paris and over 3 km in the opposite direction according to the road vigilance unit.

On the A26 motorway, in the direction Reims-Calais, the disturbances spread over 5 km.

"We have started a snail operation from the Sète (Hérault) toll booth on the A9 to the commercial port of Sète and Frontignan", explained Stéphane Dubief.

The action is scheduled until 7 p.m. on this important axis of the Mediterranean coast, he added.

Trucks, filter dam and pedestrians

On the A10 at the Virsac tollbooth, near Bordeaux, the fairgrounds blocked both directions of traffic, allowing vehicles to pass only in small quantities.

The prefecture indicates that "thirty trucks and sixty people" slowed down traffic from 7 am to 10 am.

The fairgrounds also installed a filter dam on the Fresnes les Montauban toll on the A1 in the Paris-Lille direction and caused a localized slowdown.

Slowdowns and blockages also in the Grand Est, where the prefecture of Moselle noted a little before 11 a.m. eleven kilometers of slowdown on the A4 between St-Avold and Metz and predicted new difficulties around 5 p.m.

In Brittany, according to the gendarmerie, the fairgrounds carried out a snail operation with 24 heavy goods vehicles on the RN 165 between Quimper and Lorient.

No compensation for some family businesses

The Fairground Federation explained that it had decided to seize the Council of State again "to enforce the ordinance of January 25, which was very clear, allowing fairground businesses to open under the same conditions as cultural activities, this which is not currently the case!

".

Many fairgrounds have expressed their despair at seeing their economic activity banned in the context of the health crisis.

Many of the small family businesses usually working from city to city were not included in the compensation schemes at the start of the crisis and found themselves in extremely difficult situations.

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  • Fun fair

  • Deconfinement

  • Covid 19

  • Coronavirus

  • Health

  • Traffic jams

  • Caps

  • Fairground

  • Snail operation