REPORTAGE
In the midst of a coronavirus epidemic, the town hall of the city of Lille was transformed into a giant sewing workshop. Elected officials gave way to a hundred volunteers equipped with their sewing machines. The textiles were provided free of charge by a company in the region. The goal is to make about 10,000 of the 238,000 cloth masks to be distributed to residents on May 11.
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Each session in the hall of the town hall begins with the projection of a tutorial on a giant screen. The seamstresses then grab their kit, with squares of fabrics and elastics, and the machines start up, each at their own pace. "You have to take the trick, don't go too fast at first, focus well and then it's fine", says a volunteer at the microphone of Europe 1. From a mask made in an hour and a half, she went to six to eight in one afternoon.
Among the volunteers, Claire is a dresser at the Théâtre du Nord. She advises novice seamstresses: "If they don't have the right gesture, I explain to them so as not to make another mistake. We give little tricks in sewing, little tricks on the sewing machine."
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Compliance testing
"What matters is that people are as sick as possible so that hospitals are kept as little as possible," says Stéphanie, who adds: "The caregivers are not kidding at the moment." At the end of the session, a sports coach even offers some stretching gestures for those who have been bent over their sewing machine for too long.
CORONAVIRUS ESSENTIALS
> Can France hope for a more favorable scenario than Italy?
> Are women and people with blood type O more resistant?
> Are certain serious forms linked to a genetic factor?
> How will the distribution of masks take place in France?
> Back to school on May 11: under what conditions?
> How to keep sleep during confinement?
Before being distributed, the masks must comply with the compliance decreed by the Lille University Hospital, specifies Floriane Gabriels, deputy director of the town hall: "There is a final validation stage. At the end of the cycle, we do a test before affix the compliance labels. "