A traffic jam on the Paris ring road (illustrative image) -

STEPHANE DE SAKUTIN / AFP

“Exceptional” traffic… and even more during a curfew.

Sunday evening, nearly 400 kilometers of traffic jams were recorded shortly before 6 p.m. in Ile-de-France, according to the Sytadin site.

It is four times more than in normal times and this, whereas at this hour all the French must from now on be at home, except imperative reason.

On closer inspection, the traffic jams increase crescendo from 4.30 p.m. to reach a peak shortly before 6 p.m.

Should this be seen as an effect of the advancement of the curfew and the increase in police checks, as several elected officials claim?

“The checks started at 6 pm and at this time there were a lot of people on the road.

To accuse the controls of having created the traffic jams is to take the problem backwards, ”assures a police source within the Paris police headquarters, recalling that the officials were only applying government measures.

And to insist: “During the week, we can understand that there are people on the road at the end of the day, on Sunday evening, it is more complicated.

"

New controls

Friday evening, Jean Castex announced that controls would be reinforced after 6 p.m. in order to ensure that the progress of the curfew, the objective of which is to slow the progression of the epidemic, is respected as well as possible.

Illustration of this turn of the screw: Sunday evening, the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin followed a control operation at the level of the Buchelay toll barrier on the A13.

"The French should know that after 6 pm, they have a lot of chance to be checked and therefore fined", he insisted.

Since the advancement of the curfew to 6 p.m. two weeks ago, statistics do not show an increase in traffic jams at the end of the day in the Ile-de-France region.

Whether or not there are controls.

“There were already last week, last Friday, for example, and it did not create traffic jams,” notes this police source.

The police headquarters ensure that new checks - "on foot or on the road" - will take place every day.

Paris

Ile-de-France: Nearly 400 kilometers of traffic jams on Sunday evening, the curfew in the viewfinder

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