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After three months without concerts due to the coronavirus, France celebrated the Music Festival Sunday as if the Covid-19 was not yet circulating in the country.

The images of hundreds of young people concentrated in different parts of Paris attending street concerts without masks and without respecting the rules of social distancing have drawn strong criticism on social media and in the media. They fear that as a consequence there may be a rebound of the coronavirus in the capital , one of the areas most affected by Covid-19.

The French Government had authorized the celebration on June 21 of the Music Festival, a cultural event that has been held since 1982 and marks the beginning of summer in France. On that day, music traditionally floods the streets and the French dance and sing at street concerts in gardens and squares or in venues.

Culture Minister Frank Riester had considered "important to celebrate music", but had warned that venues hosting concerts should respect strict sanitary rules. Gatherings of more than ten people in a public place are still prohibited in France in times of coronavirus, the government recalled before this cultural event.

"It is the Music Festival. They are going to meet with family or friends. The virus continues to circulate and it is everyone's responsibility to continue respecting in all circumstances the barrier gestures to protect themselves and those they love," he warned on Twitter, the Minister of Health, Olivier Véran.

The words of the Minister of Health seemed to fall on deaf ears. Parisians forgot about the coronavirus for a few hours. Social networks and the media broadcast videos and photos of massive parties in the capital. Particularly criticized were the celebrations around the Saint-Martin canal and the rue de Paradis in Paris, where the vast majority of participants did not wear a mask or respect social distances.

"Authorizing the Music Festival has been a mistake from the health point of view," Gilbert Deray, chief physician at the Pitié-Salpêtrière hospital in Paris, said on Twitter. "Asking the participants to respect the barrier gestures was an exercise in style. Maintaining order was impossible," said the doctor. "I understand that the Music Festival is liberating, but couldn't it have been avoided this year? " Asked the chief doctor of this Parisian hospital.

"From the moment the Music Festival was authorized, it was to be expected that such meetings and these masses of people," said Jean-Paul Hamon, president of the French Federation of Physicians.

France is the third European country with the highest number of deaths from coronavirus (29,643 deaths), behind the United Kingdom (42,717) and Italy (34,634), according to the count by the Johns Hopkins University in the United States.

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