Paris (AFP)

Emmanuel Macron exchanged Monday, for the return of spring break, with students from a primary school to whom he explained that the lifting of restrictions would be done "very slowly", however, evoking an upcoming effort to "shift a little "curfew.

The Head of State became a teacher by answering for an hour the many questions of the students of a CM2 class at the Paul Cézanne school in Melun (Seine-et-Marne) on the first day of the return to school. in nursery and primary.

"I am very glad that you have resumed, you look in good shape. You have to be careful to follow the rules, wash your hands and wear the mask. You will have to do the saliva tests to make sure no one does. 'is sick, ”he told them.

To his question: "Are you happy to come back physically?", The majority of the students answered "yes", even if one of them admitted to preferring to work at home with "the help of Google and ( his sister".

Government spokesman Gabriel Attal said Monday morning that the president would speak "soon" to the French to "give them the stages of the reopening schedule" of certain terraces and places of culture scheduled for "mid-May" .

After three weeks of closure, this re-entry, which precedes by one week that of face-to-face or half-gauge secondary schools and high schools, is accompanied by a strengthening of the health protocol with in particular the closure of classes as soon as a Covid-19 case.

"With the weather getting hotter, the fact that we are vaccinating more and more people and that we have reduced the number of cases with the efforts of the last few weeks, we should gradually reopen things slowly from the beginning. of the month of May ", assured the president, accompanied by the Minister of Education Jean-Michel Blanquer.

"What we want to do is take it very slowly to prevent it from starting again," he insisted.

To a girl who considered the curfew "a little annoying", Emmanuel Macron assured that the government would "try to shift it a bit because 7pm is very early".

Asked another child about the restrictions in the playgrounds, he promised that "in a few weeks" he could "play with friends from other classes" and not just those in his class.

Responding to several questions from students on the vaccination campaign, Emmanuel Macron indicated that, even if "we are not there yet", "the question will arise" for children and adolescents and that it is possible that in the future it is necessary to "be vaccinated every year, as for the flu".

Emmanuel Macron spoke afterwards with teachers, who explained to him that they had "caught up" the negative impact of the first confinement and that the evaluations showed "no drop in results" compared to the previous year.

He assured one of them, who asked him to "reopen the castles" to visits, that the objective was to reopen cultural places "with limited gauges and privileged access for schools from mid-year. -may".

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