Paris (AFP)
The French are preparing to live a confined May 1, without manifestation or little sprigs of thrush, but with a multitude of questions in mind on the conditions of deconfinement
Pan concerts, collective songs, online demonstrations and protest signs: the unions, left disappointed in a meeting by videoconference with Edouard Philippe on the modalities of deconfinement, celebrate the international workers' day on social networks and from balconies.
"This is an opportunity to bear the social demands that we have been defending for a long time and that the crisis has highlighted," explains Philippe Martinez, the general secretary of the CGT. With the FSU, Solidaires, the Lycian movements Fidl, MNL, UNL and student Unef, he called to highlight the "forgotten" and the "invisible of our societies".
In the crosshairs, health workers, employees in commerce, the food industry, paramedical, social, maintenance, public service agents, on the front line in the fight against coronavirus.
While a second wave of the epidemic is feared in hospitals, the Prime Minister began consultations with employers and unions with the aim of putting the French back to work in the face of a historic economic recession.
For Bruno Le Maire, Minister of the Economy, "it is necessary that a maximum of French return to work", while unemployment experienced a historic surge in March (+ 7.1%).
- "Let's hold on" -
In this context, the general secretary of Force Ouvrière Yves Veyrier demanded that the short-time working arrangement be extended, while the government plans to reduce the airfoil from June.
The recession linked to the Covid-19 pandemic is confirmed every day. The first two weeks of containment alone, in March, caused a 5.8% contraction in GDP in the first quarter, according to INSEE.
In view of the gradual deconfinement which will lead the French to return to work, the executive presented Thursday evening the list of departments in red, orange and green according to the state of the epidemic and the intensive care units.
Unsurprisingly, the whole of Ile-de-France and the northeast quarter of the country, the two main areas affected, appear entirely in "red", as well as Haute-Corse, Cher, Lot and Mayotte . The card will be updated daily until May 7, before the start of the deconfinement scheduled for 11, said Minister of Health Olivier Véran.
The coronavirus has claimed 24,376 lives since March 1, of which 289 in the past 24 hours. The Director General of Health, Prof Jérôme Salomon, however stressed that the intensive care services now count 4,019 patients (-188 in 24 hours) against nearly 7,200 on April 9.
France is therefore schematically divided into three roughly equivalent parts, between red, green and orange. On May 7, only two categories will remain, green and red, which will determine the level of relaxation of the restrictions decreed on March 17.
In the departments in green, a lesser presence of the virus will make it possible to organize a wider deconfinement.
"So much effort made over the past 46 days. Let's not make them in vain. Let's keep it going," said President Emmanuel Macron on Twitter.
- "Easy prey"
In public transport, non-compliance with the wearing of masks could be punished with a fine of 135 euros, warned the Secretary of State for Transport, Jean-Baptiste Djebari in an interview with Parisian on Friday.
Djebbari stressed that "law enforcement" would be responsible for enforcing this obligation, but also the security services of transport operators.
On the education front, strict hygiene measures could govern the return to school from May 11, according to a working document of the health protocol obtained by AFP: hand washing repeatedly during the day , games prohibited, disinfection of equipment between each use by a child.
In the Bas-Rhin, the president (LR) of the departmental council Frédéric Bierry "invited" on Thursday the parents of pupils of the department "not to send their children to school before May 25" if they can "to avoid new ones chains of contamination "of the coronavirus.
"The Covid has easy prey, it wreaks havoc on our elders and it quietly advances with our children, especially the youngest who are, we are told, asymptomatic," said Mr. Bierry in a statement.
© 2020 AFP