Containment: Castaner closes the door to departures on spring vacations - France 24

Paris (AFP)

Christophe Castaner firmly reminded the French on Wednesday that the start of the spring school holidays in a few days will not be synonymous with "big starts", due to the confinement to fight against the spread of the coronavirus.

"Very concretely, we do not go on vacation during the confinement period," said the Minister of the Interior on LCI.

To ensure that the French concerned by the start of Friday evening spring school holidays, ie zone C (Ile-de-France and Occitanie), Mr. Castaner indicated that he had strengthened controls on major highways, but also in airports and stations where "the rail supply is reduced to 6% of its capacity".

"Any abuse will be punished," warned the minister.

He also asked the prefects concerned to check the level of seasonal rentals in tourist areas.

"Containment is a constraint for families, I know it but we have to keep it," said the minister.

He stressed that the police had carried out around 5.8 million checks since the beginning of the confinement on March 17, and drew up 359,000 reports for non-compliance with these measures.

"When we control it is not to verbalize but to guarantee containment," explained the minister.

The tenant of the Place Beauvau paid a strong tribute to the work of the internal security forces, without however varying from the government doctrine on the use of masks which must go first to the carers and which the police and gendarmes must only put in the presence of a symptomatic case. This is strongly criticized by the police unions.

Christophe Castaner has also officially confirmed that around 10,000 national police personnel are subject to fortnightly measures or on arrest to allow custody of their children.

"10,000 out of 150,000 is a low rate compared to the total engagement of our internal security forces," he said.

In total, the Ministry of the Interior deplores three deaths attributable to the coronavirus: an administrative agent of the Paris police prefecture, a prefecture staff and a non-commissioned officer of the gendarmerie.

© 2020 AFP