Paris (AFP)

"If the manufacturers of approved visors can take over, so much the better": from the start of the pandemic, little hands were activated to urgently compensate for the lack of equipment. Volunteers who throw in the towel, discouraged by administrative standards and obligations.

Masks, visors, gowns, the health crisis has seen an unprecedented boom in "do it yourself", first to help caregivers, then traders and the general public. But when the State regains ground come the technical standards, the certifications and the administrative framework.

"We created in an emergency, made by hand, to render service": at the end of March, Antonin Tailhandier developed in five days with the youtuber Heliox the Covid3d.fr platform to bring together the "makers" (new DIYers) technologies) ready to make protective equipment.

But at the beginning of May, "when the government issues visor notices, we understand that we can no longer call our products" protective visors "but" anti-projection equipment ", that there should no longer be the word + covid + nowhere, and you have to sign waivers ".

Antonin Tailhandier gives up, believing "to have done service when it was needed most. It was better to close the site to protect himself" because "if tomorrow an applicant catches the coronavirus while wearing a visor, he may turn against us. "

Even "fear of prosecution" for Alexandre Hennic, who suspended his "home" production of visors in mid-May. "If I have to make a discharge, a manual, that I check that it is signed and that after there is still a risk ..." regrets this resident of Deux-Sèvres.

Contacted by AFP, the general direction of the companies (DGE) explains that "subject to not claiming capacity of protection or filtration, masks and visors + homemade + or produced in an artisanal way can completely be put on the market".

But for many, the official approval - which affixes the name "masks for the general public" - and its paid test, sounded like a shutdown.

Obag, a fabric packaging company which had decided to voluntarily manufacture masks in its Parisian workshop, despite having respected the official specifications, that of the Afnor, the French Association for Standardization, it has renounced the distribute.

- "Breakout of abandonment" -

"We had the market confiscated because we did not have the certification for the number of washes. You have to pay 1,150 euros to have your model tested!", Explains its manager Bérangère Marcellin.

The Afnor had indeed published on March 27 a model of fabric mask, to avoid the manufacture of "masks at best ineffective, at worst dangerous for the wearer".

If the association "makes recommendations", it "does not carry out tests, homologation or certifications", indicates Olivier Gibert, its spokesperson.

"The ambition was to provide an answer to manufacturers, we were surprised by the enthusiasm of individuals," he adds: the model has been downloaded by 1.3 million people.

Among them, Céline Balcaen. This seamstress from the Oise had launched into the free making of masks.

"I have equipped bakers, artisans, taxi drivers ... We are responsible for its product. If it turns out that your mask is tested, defective, it becomes very contentious".

For the manufacturers which would not have received the homologation "general public", the DGE asked to "take care not to claim any performance which they are not able to demonstrate. It would be a deceptive commercial practice" .

There has been "a wave of abandonments", notes Fabricommuns, an application for linking up "makers" and "seekers" who prides themselves on having supplied 350,000 visors, 28,000 cloth masks and 800,000 overcoats.

"Sometimes a maker is at home, he thinks he is working for the common good but he is not aware of his responsibility", believes Stéphanie Vincent, project manager at Fabricommuns.

The application, however, encourages volunteers to continue to produce: "the action still needs to exist", by signing the famous "rebate release to beneficiaries which indicates that it does not correspond to such mask produced by the industry ", specifies Stéphanie Vincent.

© 2020 AFP