German officials have regretted attacks on French citizens in border areas. Some of them are seen as bringing with them coronavirus, in a country where the mortality rate is much lower than that of France.

The German Minister of Foreign Affairs condemned Saturday attacks or repeated harassment suffered for several weeks by French on the move in border areas, less affected by covid-19. "The coronavirus does not know a nationality. It is the same for human dignity. It hurts to see how our French friends are sometimes insulted and attacked because of covid-19. Such behavior is not possible. We are in the same boat! "Tweeted Heiko Maas.

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He replied to the Minister of Economy of the Saarland, a region bordering the Great East of France, Anke Rehlinger who recently apologized on behalf of Germany. "Our Saarland heart is bleeding from the closed borders with France and Luxembourg. We hear that the French are insulted and that eggs are thrown at them. Anyone who does this sins against the friendship of our peoples", he said. she regretted April 8 on the social network. "I apologize to our French friends for these isolated incidents," she added.

Corona kennt keine Nationalität. Genauso ist es mit der Menschenwürde. Es tut weh zu sehen, wie unsere französischen FreundInnen wegen #COVID ー 19 bei uns teils beleidigt und angegangen werden. So ein Verhalten geht gar nicht. Abgesehen davon: Wir sitzen im selben Boot! https://t.co/ZjkcItxwTK

- Heiko Maas (@HeikoMaas) April 11, 2020

A few days earlier, Michael Clivot, the mayor of the small German town of Gersheim, bordering the border, was moved to note "a certain hostility towards our French friends" in his region. "Some are insulted and arrested in the street" or "some French people no longer dare to come here", he was alarmed in an interview with the t-online news site. The case took on such a scale that he addressed his constituents in a video message posted on Facebook.

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"Go back to your corona country!"

French people addressed him to say that they had been spit on them during a walk or at the supermarket checkout. One of them was told "Go back to your country from the corona!", He said. In this context, the mayor criticized the closure of the border with France by the German authorities in mid-March, decided with the aim of curbing the contagion of the pandemic. "What we needed was joint action with France," he said.

On March 16, Germany severely restricted entry to its territory by carrying out drastic controls, notably with France. Since then, the police have allowed only the transport of goods and cross-border workers and have been instructed to turn back other travelers.

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Five times less deaths than in France

With more than 2,000 people officially deceased, the Grand Est region is the first source of contamination in France, while its German neighbor, the Saarland, only counts 41 victims officially listed by the Robert Koch institute.

Overall, Germany has a much lower mortality rate than France for a number of neighboring proven cases. France has around 125,000 cases declared for 13,000 deaths and Germany nearly 118,000 cases for 2,544 deaths.