Initially scheduled for Saturday, the total closure of bars and restaurants to fight the Covid-19 pandemic will finally take effect on Sunday evening, announced on Friday September 25, LR president of the Provence-Alpes-Côte-d'Azur region Renaud. Muzzle.

The latter was speaking to the press at the end of a meeting in the prefecture with elected officials and the Minister of Health Olivier Véran, visiting Marseille, where the announcement of these upcoming closures sparked an uproar.

"These are significant advances", greeted the president of the region in a separate statement, also referring to "a review clause (...) in seven days to take stock and reassess the situation".

"We want to discuss, we got 48 hours so that they (the restaurateurs) can sell the stocks, it's not huge but it's already something", also greeted at the end of this meeting Maryse Joissains , the LR mayor of Aix-en-Provence.

"Maximum alert"

Anger has been roaring in Marseille since the announcement, Wednesday, September 23, of the total closure of bars and restaurants from this weekend.

Visiting the city on Friday September 25, the Minister of Health Olivier Véran defended the government's announcements.

"I am fully aware that some of the measures are debated (...) raise concerns, questions, even anger," he admitted during a press conference at the public hospital of the Timone.

"These measures, they are necessary, they are temporary, but they are not arbitrary".

On Wednesday, the government placed Marseille, which holds the record for metropolitan France for the highest disease incidence rate (at 281 cases per 100,000 according to the authorities), in "maximum alert zone" and announced in particular for the Aix-Marseille metropolis the total closure of bars and restaurants for 15 days.

The health situation has deteriorated sharply in #Marseille for several weeks, posing a major risk: that the health system is no longer able to accommodate and treat new patients in intensive care.

https://t.co/HWYlgtOPz1 pic.twitter.com/DxVi4bK4mc

- Olivier Véran (@olivierveran) September 25, 2020

The government's announcements caused an uproar among local elected officials from all over the region, and among restaurateurs and cafetiers.

Friday morning, several hundred of them, supported by elected officials, gathered in front of the Marseille commercial court, where they say they fear having to file for bankruptcy soon, according to the local boss of the Union of Trades and Industries of the Bernard Marty hotel industry.

Before the commercial court, Hugo Chauffournier, manager of a bar in the Old Port, said he wanted to continue "to campaign democratically for the moment".

"But if that doesn't work, we'll have to think of other solutions," he warned.

Elected officials and upstairs restaurateurs

United against government measures, announced without consultation according to them, elected officials from all sides joined the demonstration.

On Twitter, with the hashtag "#RESISTANCE", the deputy mayor of Marseille Samia Ghali (DVG), present at the rally, warned: "If this decision is maintained, the city @marseille will not provide its support for put in place the closures ".

On the presidential majority side, in a joint letter to the Minister of Health, the LREM deputies from Bouches-du-Rhône warned against "a climate of mistrust", and asked him to reassess the situation after a week, instead of 15 days, as advertised.

While waiting for the situation to improve on its own, "we risk having to take even stronger measures than those we have just announced", replied the Minister.

The turn of the screw announced Wednesday in the fight against Covid also aroused strong reactions in Paris or Nice, two of the 11 metropolises where bars will have to close at 10 p.m. on Monday.

Big success for # Véran in #Marseille Cafetiers


-restaurateurs announce that they will open anyway, Samia Ghali that the municipal police will not issue them and the Marseille bosses slam the door of negotiations which are not


All is well pic. twitter.com/jN9y3rc9s4

- Marcel Aiphan (@AiphanMarcel) September 25, 2020

Experts divided

In Marseille, Professor Didier Raoult for his part relaunched the debate on Friday around the figures for the epidemic and the need for new measures, asserting that "the data from Public Health France (consolidated) is (were) not able to justify the slightest panic "in Marseille.

An analysis shared by elected officials opposed to the new measures, but qualified by Sophie Vaux, epidemiologist at Public Health France: "In some regions, there may be a stabilization, but we remain very careful".

Head of the anesthesia and resuscitation service at La Timone, Professor Nicolas Bruder also warned: "If it continues to increase, we will be in a really critical situation for both Covid patients and others. It is absolutely necessary that it is bending ".

According to the latest national report, 16,096 new cases of Covid-19 have been registered in 24 hours, a level not reached since the launch of large-scale tests in the country.

In Île-de-France, Assistance Publique-Hôpitaux de Paris (AP-HP) has already warned that it was forced to deprogram 20% of surgical operations as of this weekend.

With AFP

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