Jean Castex, in La Rochelle on December 12, 2020. -
UGO AMEZ / SIPA
Jean Castex will start 2021 alongside the military.
The Prime Minister will go to Chad for New Year's Eve, with "French troops responsible for fighting Daesh in the Sahel," he said in the regional daily
Independent
published on Sunday.
The Sahel is facing jihadist violence and a security crisis which has left thousands of civilian and military dead in recent years.
France is present there as part of Operation Barkhane, which has engaged more than 5,000 men since the dispatch of 600 additional soldiers in 2020, in the face of the deteriorating situation.
Paris is looking at a return to previous numbers.
Family Christmas
Before this New Year's Eve, adds Jean Castex, “I will spend Christmas with my family and it will be in the Pyrénées-Orientales”.
There will be “six adults plus children”, specifies the former mayor of Prades, ie the maximum number of adults recommended in the face of the coronavirus epidemic.
On the sanitary measures taken, “see what all the European countries are doing.
I am flabbergasted because one has the impression that France is an island.
No one is watching what's going on next.
The Italians prohibit travel between regions, including for the end of year holidays;
the Germans are starting to close their businesses and seem to regret not having done so earlier, ”notes the head of government, according to whom“ France made the right decisions at the right time ”.
And to add, after the announcements Thursday of a cautious deconfinement for the holiday season: “We must be firm in the controls.
This will be the case for trips after 8 pm and on compliance with gauges and protocols, especially in certain supermarkets ”.
No slacking off until next summer
"The country has been facing a difficult crisis for nine months and I fully understand that my fellow citizens are exhausted and sometimes exasperated", continues the Prime Minister, also confronted with the discontent of the world of culture which was initially to reopen on December 15.
Jean Castex warns: “It is not before the end of spring or the beginning of summer that we will have vaccinated a sufficient number of French people to achieve sufficient immunity and to protect vulnerable people.
This means that everything else - testing, alerting, isolating, barrier gestures - will continue at least until next summer ”.
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Jean Castex
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