Covid in France: Emmanuel Macron's announcements raise questions
New businesses had to close in the sixteen departments, and the list of those that remain open has been published: florists, chocolate makers, music stores, hairdressers or shoemakers are part of this Prévert-style inventory.
According to the government, this brings the number of businesses now closed to 90,000.
AFP - LUDOVIC MARIN
Text by: RFI Follow
6 mins
Political reactions have multiplied after President Emmanuel Macron's announcement of new measures to fight the Covid-19 pandemic, in particular the extension to the entire territory of the restrictions already in force in 19 departments.
Publicity
Read more
For Marine Le Pen, president of the RN, “
the measures announced by Macron result in particular from a vaccine Waterloo for which he does not assume responsibility.
Unfortunately, it is the French who pay the consequences of these delays, this pride, these inconsistencies, with a heavy impact on their daily life
”.
At the other end of the political spectrum, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, leader of LFI, judged “
Macron inconsistent.
The pupils: some at school, others at home.
Curfew without alternating work schedules = the crush.
Air purifier
?
FFP2 Mask Free
?
Free vaccine license
?
Nothing.
Sorry.
"
Julien Bayou, EELV national secretary, is also very critical after the announcements: “
An omniscient president decides everything, all the time and for everyone.
Parliament will take care of the rest.
The morbid "bet" is lost.
We are paying the price.
By favoring the economy to the detriment of health, we lose on both counts
”.
For President Les Républicains (LR) of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region and President of the Regions of France, Renaud Muselier, “
this new turn of the screw must be the last
!
Vaccinate night and day, everywhere, to protect and make it possible to return to life.
We want to live!
"
Anger also at Fabien Roussel, number one of the PCF.
"
I was hoping that the president would make ambitious announcements for access to vaccines, to produce them in France, to go faster and stronger,
" he said
.
Health is not a commodity!
► To read also: Covid in France: nurseries, schools, colleges and high schools closed for three weeks
Hope on the side of caregivers
For Philippe Juvin, head of emergencies at the Georges-Pompidou hospital in Paris and LR mayor of La Garenne-Colombes (Hauts-de-Seine), “
we were very late, there was procrastination, we are going pay it dearly
”.
And to continue: "
We are asked to make an effort (the nursing staff), we will do it, but it will be very complicated
".
“
There will be a certain lag before we see the impact of these measures, we hope that they will be sufficient.
The fact of extending it to the whole of France, the fact of acting on schools, in particular middle and high schools (...), we hope that these are measures that will make it possible to slow down this congestion that we felt come to resuscitation and emergencies to the detriment of the care of patients outside Covid,
”said Karine Lacombe, head of the infectious diseases department at Saint-Antoine hospital in Paris.
♦
The employers are worried about the consequences of the new health restrictions
The two main French employers' organizations, Medef and CPME, expressed concern on Wednesday about the consequences of the extension of business closures to the entire metropolitan territory.
"
This new confinement will be terrible for all the closed sectors
", reacted in a tweet the president of Medef Geoffroy Roux de Bézieux after the speech of Emmanuel Macron.
“
It must be the last.
Let's open them all on May 15,
”added Mr. Roux de Bézieux while a number of businesses and establishments open to the public are undergoing administrative closures to curb the Covid-19 epidemic.
On March 20, following the announcement of the decision to close certain businesses in 16 departments, the president of Medef had already denounced a “
charnement on businesses
”.
For his part, the president of the Confederation of SMEs François Asselin recalled Wednesday the impossibility for the employer to force an employee to take leave without a notice period of at least one month, if he must stay at home to look after her children while schools will remain closed for three weeks.
For employees with partial unemployment, there is also a "
remainder of 15% for the employer, except for sectors S1 and S1 bis
", that is to say the establishments most affected by the health crisis, Mr. Asselin told AFP.
According to him, "
we will have people with partial unemployment who will then take their paid vacation when activity resumes
".
"
In a period as we have been going through it for over a year, frankly we did not need that
", deplores the president of the CPME, who asks "to be
able to reposition the leaves of the employees
".
In addition, the CPME regrets "
that we have not kept the territorialization
", with uniform restrictive measures on the whole of the metropolitan territory from Sunday.
“
If we can't go more than ten kilometers, why close all local shops?
Asked Mr. Asselin.
Jacques Creyssel, General Delegate of the Federation of Commerce and Distribution (FCD) deplores the consequences for commerce.
Once again, the business will be severely affected by the consequences of these decisions: at least 150,000 businesses will have to close for 4 weeks.
It is high time to build a plan to safeguard and revitalize trade, the leading employer in France 🇫🇷 @FCDfrance https://t.co/l1uGRtlhex
- Jacques Creyssel (@JacquesCreyssel) March 31, 2021
(With
AFP
)
Newsletter
Receive all international news directly in your mailbox
I subscribe
Follow all the international news by downloading the RFI application
google-play-badge_FR
France
Coronavirus
Emmanuel Macron