Paris (AFP)

The Minister of Economy Bruno Le Maire, called on Wednesday a "maximum of French to return to work" after the deconfinement planned on May 11, judging that the resumption of the activity "was essential for the French nation".

"We have to go back to work and a maximum of French people have to go back to work," said the minister on LCI, the day after Prime Minister Edouard Philippe presented the deconfinement plan for May 11. national, which adopted it by 368 votes for and 100 against.

"My message is very simple: we have to roll up our sleeves all together", he explained, recalling that the French economy is badly hit by the coronavirus crisis, the government predicting a strong recession for this year with a fall in GDP of 8%.

"Returning to activity is essential for the French nation. We must return to work, we must resume our activity and we must do it all together," said Le Maire.

"This return to activity must be done in the best possible conditions on May 11," he added, ensuring that he wanted to convey "a message of optimism and voluntarism" to entrepreneurs and employees : "We are going to prepare this well and we will succeed in it together", he stressed.

Concerning the wearing of the mask at work, he considered it normal that "the entrepreneur provides it when it is necessary".

The minister announced, moreover, that the government would "certainly not present" before the start of the school year, in September or October, its plan to revive the French economy, ensuring that it was necessary to advance step by step.

"I am also working on European coordination, because nothing would be worse than having France which takes certain measures for its recovery plan and Germany which would not take similar measures", he warned.

According to him, "the recovery must also be massive and in particular that the European Union must respond and come to support the national recovery plans".

The Minister also announced that France would strengthen its control of foreign investments in order to protect French companies in difficulty due to the crisis caused by the Covid-19 epidemic.

The threshold for triggering control of non-European investors taking shares in a large French company will be "lowered from 25% to 10%" until the end of the year, and more generally, control will be extended to the biotechnology, he said.

© 2020 AFP