Tens of millions of Europeans enjoyed relative freedom over the weekend, with states gradually easing the containment measures put in place to fight the Covid-19 pandemic.

In Germany, professional football was able to resume. The German championship (Bundesliga) is the first to have restarted on Saturday, allowing the prestigious Bayern Munich to win 2-0 against the Union Berlin. The meeting was played in an empty stadium.

France, for its part, has reopened a large number of its beaches, many of which were taken over this weekend when the weather was good in France. Travel remains limited to a radius of one hundred kilometers around the home.

Very dependent on seaside tourism, Greece authorizes access to public beaches since May 4. This weekend, it widened the authorizations of opening to the private beaches, while imposing very strict health rules.

In England, the first weekend since the easing of containment saw visitors flocking to the parks, sometimes making it difficult to comply with the social distancing instructions.

Italy, which announced its lowest coronavirus death toll since confinement on Sunday, will lift the mandatory quarantine for foreign visitors and reopen its borders to tourists from the EU to effective June 3. "We are faced with a calculated risk, knowing (...) that the epidemiological curve could once again start to rise," said the head of the Italian government, Giuseppe Conte.

With AFP

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