Paris (AFP)
Three days before Christmas, Emmanuel Macron justified Monday the isolation of Great Britain in the face of the "problematic" mutation of the coronavirus and the government is considering a possible repatriation of French people for the holidays while preparing for the start of vaccination on Sunday .
Government spokesman Gabriel Attal, as well as Health Minister Olivier Véran, said on Monday that France would start its vaccination campaign on Sunday, like Germany and Spain, as part of a European coordination , anticipating the green light given Monday evening by the European Commission to the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.
"Vaccination will start in the 27 EU countries on December 27, 28 and 29. To all the skeptics, to all those who doubt it, Europe has shown that it is much more than a big market: a community of destiny ", tweeted Prime Minister Jean Castex after the green light.
- "Very gradual start" of vaccination -
"Preparatory meetings for the launch of the vaccine campaign will be held throughout the week before a European launch scheduled for Sunday," he added, specifying that others were scheduled "early next week".
But it will be "a very gradual start," said Mr. Véran on Europe1.
And according to him, there is "a priori" no reason "to think that the vaccines would be less effective" against the new variant.
He did not rule out that this new variant, especially present in Great Britain, also "circulates" in France.
Emmanuel Macron, who has "still symptoms" of Covid-19, worried about a "problematic mutation of the virus with a much more aggressive form" which justifies, according to him, the suspension for 48 hours of all arrivals in origin of British soil decided the day before by Paris and several European countries.
"It is an exceptional situation which led us to take this rapid decision and which should lead us to redouble our vigilance on the evolution" of the virus, added the president, dressed in black and wearing a mask, from the official residence de La Lanterne, in Versailles, where he is still in isolation after testing positive Thursday for Covid-19.
Mr. Attal specified at the end of the Council that the executive would ensure an "acute and permanent monitoring of the circulation of the virus" and that a new meeting on the health situation was to be held "at the beginning of next week" around the president.
According to a government source, it should take the form of a Health Defense Council.
He specified that the state of health of Emmanuel Macron, who celebrates his 43 years in solitary confinement at La Lanterne on Monday, was "stable", after the exceptional dissemination of statements by the Head of State during the Council of Ministers by videoconference.
The suspension of travel was announced on Sunday after an extraordinary Health Defense Council and comes in the wake of similar measures taken by Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, Germany, Luxembourg or the Ireland, while a mutation of the virus responsible for Covid, Sars-CoV-2, was detected across the Channel, considered by London as "out of control" on its territory.
But not at the global level, said the WHO on Monday.
- Scenes of chaos -
"We are giving ourselves the means, with the suspension of border crossing for 48 hours, to build a health protocol which should allow our compatriots who are now in Great Britain and who had planned to return to France to spend the holidays , to do it with new sanitary rules which are being discussed and being built, ”explained Mr. Attal.
The European Union must try to harmonize on Tuesday the measures decided by the member states to prevent arrivals from the United Kingdom, as the closure of the borders has given rise to scenes of chaos with passengers stranded at airports and truck drivers stuck in UK.
The European stock markets unscrewed on Monday because of fears related to this change: at the close, the Parisian market gave up 2.43%.
Markets also plunged across Europe, from London to Frankfurt to Milan, and fell sharply in mid-session on Wall Street.
The government spokesperson invited the French detained in the United Kingdom to carry out without waiting a PCR test, which should be one of the conditions to be able to return to France by Christmas.
According to the latest figures from the health authorities provided on Sunday, France recorded 12,799 new cases of Covid-19 contamination over the past 24 hours, against 17,565 the day before.
jri-el-pab-arz / ib / alc
© 2020 AFP