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The press release from the Élysée Palace is extremely short and factual: on Thursday morning, the French President's office announced that Emmanuel Macron had tested positive for the corona virus “that day”.
"According to the current recommendations, which apply to everyone, the President of the Republic will quarantine himself for seven days," the statement said dryly.
He will continue his work from there via video conference.
The test was carried out on Thursday after “the first symptoms”, it said, without these being described in more detail.
Macron, who will celebrate his 43rd birthday next Monday, will probably spend it in quarantine.
France's Prime Minister Jean Castex, who is considered a contact person, immediately went into self-isolation and will continue to run government from a distance.
If you bend over the French President's calendar, you quickly realize that Macron has had numerous contacts over the past few days, including several lunches that naturally took place without a mask.
However, the 26 heads of government who met Macron during the last EU summit in Brussels on Thursday and Friday last week, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, were particularly nervous.
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They had negotiated in a windowless room for more than 21 hours.
High EU circles assured WELT that all “health protection measures” were strictly observed at the summit.
So far, apart from Macron, no other Covid diseases have been reported by participants.
A spokeswoman for the Federal Press Office announced that the German Chancellor had ", as always after a European Council, made a PCR text a few days apart," emphasizing that the result was negative.
The Élysée Palace has not yet responded to the question of whether the French President might have infected other heads of state at the EU summit.
Assuming a classic incubation period of five days until the first symptoms appear, it seems rather unlikely that Macron was already contagious at this point in time.
Conversely, it is more likely to suggest that he might have been infected during his trip to Brussels.
Macron answered questions from 150 French people
But even after the EU summit, Macron met many people, including several heads of government.
On Monday, on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the founding of the OECD, he dined with the Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, who said he will be in quarantine until December 24th.
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Charles Michel, EU Council President, and Angel Gurría, Secretary General of the OECD, were also present at this lunch in the Élysée.
According to official information, they are not considered to be contact persons because sufficient distance has been maintained.
The same applies to the Portuguese Prime Minister António Costa, who was at the Élysée Palace for lunch on Wednesday, a day before Macron's test result was positive.
According to his office, he too immediately went into self-isolation.
On Tuesday lunch was on the calendar with the President of the National Assembly, Richard Ferrand, and nine parliamentary group leaders from the various political groups in the National Assembly.
The 69-year-old Jean-Luc Mélenchon, head of the left-wing populist France Insoumise, also took part.
One of the participants was surprised that his "Tous Anti-Covid" app did not sound the alarm on Thursday.
"I assume that he (Macron) loaded and activated it," said Jean-Christophe Lagarde, chairman of the UDI parliamentary group, with an ironic undertone.
Lagarde is alluding to the fact that the French Prime Minister Castex admitted in a television broadcast that he did not use the app himself.
The latter now shows how many people have loaded and activated it.
The last stand is 11,588,222.
With around 67 million French people, far too little to be effective.
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A real super-spreader event could have happened on Monday afternoon when Macron met the participants in the convention for the climate.
The 150 randomly selected French people who had submitted proposals to the President in the summer on how France could achieve its climate goals met in a large, windowless room, where Macron was available to answer questions for several hours.
Brigitte Macron shows no symptoms
However, the Élysée assumes that it could not have infected anyone there because distance rules were observed and masks were worn.
The same applies to the narrow Defense Council on Wednesday morning and the subsequent Council of Ministers, in which the French government took part in full.
The office of the president's wife announced that Brigitte Macron had gone into quarantine as a contact person, but had not shown any symptoms so far.
The 67-year-old
Première Dame
had only tested negative on Tuesday before visiting a children's ward at the Paris Saint-Louis hospital.
A current test result from Thursday has not yet been published.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson sent Macron prompt recovery wishes.
In a tweet written in French, he wished him a "speedy recovery".
The German Chancellor Merkel and Austria's Chancellor Sebastian Kurz also followed suit.
France has not been in lockdown since Tuesday.
However, there is a curfew from 8 p.m.
The number of infections has fallen sharply and is at a stable but high level.
17,615 new cases were recorded on Wednesday.
Before the first lockdown in mid-March, Macron said France was "at war".
He has long been criticized, if not ridiculed, for this martial choice of words.
However, he still stands by it today.
“It took some kind of electric shock to save lives,” Macron said in an interview he gave to the French news magazine “Le Point” this week.