Paris (AFP)

The government and the social partners make "the point" Friday on the coronavirus and the measures to be taken in the companies, at a time when the disease is accelerating in France, with 38 cases identified.

While 2,000 students have not returned to school and the hospital staff on the bridge evoke a risk of "rupture", a meeting with the ministers Muriel Pénicaud (Work), Olivier Véran (Health) and Bruno Le Maire (Economy ) has been held since the end of the morning at the Ministry of Labor.

Less affected than neighboring Italy, France saw the balance sheet accelerate Thursday, with a total of 38 confirmed cases announced Thursday evening against 18 the day before.

This figure could "evolve" in the coming hours, warned the Ministry of Health, while Emmanuel Macron invited to "face the best" the "epidemic that is coming".

Before the meeting, Geoffroy Roux de Bézieux, president of Medef, declared on France Inter that if the employees returned from vacations from risk areas "are not obliged to declare it" because "there is a freedom", "it would be necessary do it".

"They have the right to be arrested" and to be "compensated by the social security system, and possibly to work by telework," he added. "There is an economic impact but the priority is the health of the employees," added the boss. Asked about the fall of the stock market, he put into perspective: "what matters is the underlying growth, not the ephemeral side of the stock market".

For his part, the Minister of Education Jean-Michel Blanquer announced that "around 2,000 students" had not returned to school and are currently staying at home because they have returned from an area affected by the coronavirus.

- "Risks of disorganization" -

Only a third of France returned to school after the February holidays - Ile-de-France and Occitania - so "of course this figure will increase next week when a second third will return from holidays and when we have made the new assessments of the evolution of the disease, "the minister continued on Europe 1.

Mr. Blanquer also assured that a distance learning device could be deployed on a large scale if necessary, "from the large section of kindergarten to the Terminale".

Asked about a possible closure of the schools, the minister insisted on the necessary "discernment". "We are not rushing things", "we are at a stage where the right measure is to ask people to stay at home," he said.

In the Oise, at Jean-de-La-Fontaine college in Crépy-en-Valois where the professor who died from coronavirus infection was teaching, classes will resume on Thursday and not Monday, the rectorate announced .

There is also the question of payment for days off for parents who have to keep their children at home. "It was planned with the health insurance funds," replied Mr. Blanquer.

On the bridge for several weeks, the medical personnel also worried. Christophe Prudhomme, president of the Association of emergency physicians (Amuf) stressed on Friday that "with a system under tension, the slightest overheating risks causing a rupture".

"Yes, the hospitals are ready but we are going to operate in degraded mode. We are going to pull the cord and we will have to organize ourselves by reinforcing the resuscitation. How can we strengthen them? With overtime because we cannot improvise no resuscitation nurse overnight, "he added on Sud Radio.

"When we have an attack, no problem, we mobilize for 48 hours (…) but there, mobilization, we will have it for several weeks!"

In a press release, the inter-emergency collective, which started a strike lasting several months, as well as Isni interns went in the same direction, stressing that each epidemic was "a test for the health system ". And "the beginning epidemic of coronavirus will not escape this rule": "it too will spread its risks of disorganization, dysfunctions, collateral damage throughout the territory".

© 2020 AFP