Paris (AFP)

Recover your health before summer or have fun: sports halls, casinos, amusement parks and thalassos will be able to reopen Wednesday thanks to a "strong" improvement on the front of the Covid-19 epidemic in France.

The curfew will also be pushed back from 9:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. and bars and restaurants will be able to welcome their guests inside, no longer only on the terrace.

Much to the delight of gourmet restaurants which are not all provided.

At the end of 7 months of famine, also resumption of bodybuilding sessions or indoor zumba classes and reopening of indoor swimming pools, thalassotherapy centers and fairgrounds.

"Each machine had to be dusted off," explains Jordan Bouvier, a graduate trainer met by AFP in Strasbourg in a room of the Keep Cool network, delighted to find his colleagues and to get out of partial unemployment.

Parc Asterix will also reopen with a 65% gauge, compulsory mask and marking on the ground to guarantee distance.

Disneyland Paris, the first private tourist destination in Europe, will follow from June 17, but hugs with mascots will remain prohibited.

Trade fairs may also resume.

The annual Vivatech Technology Forum will be one of the first shows to be held, June 16-19.

Access will however be subject to presentation of a negative test or a vaccination certificate.

Cultural spaces including museums will be able to increase the number of visitors to 65% of their capacity against 35% during phase 1, on May 19.

# photo2

This should make life easier for tourists with the possibility from June 9 for people entering France to do without a PCR test with a vaccination certificate.

Pending the entry into force on July 1 of the European health pass.

Wednesday will also mark the end of 100% teleworking (already relaxed a little in January) and loneliness at the canteen table, as well as the resumption of food at the office while respecting barrier gestures.

This second phase was made possible by the continued marked improvement in sanitary conditions observed from the beginning of May, linked according to the government to the acceleration of vaccination.

- "all indicators are green" -

"All the indicators are green, the incidence (number of new cases recorded over a week, editor's note) is below 100 (per 100,000 inhabitants), the situation continues to improve strongly throughout the country" , estimated the Minister of Health, Olivier Véran on BFM on Sunday.

At the peak of the third wave, at the end of March, the incidence rate had exceeded the critical threshold of 600 in Ile-de-France and Hauts-de-France and 57 French departments were above the alert level of 250 cases per 100,000 inhabitants.

# photo3

"The gradual deconfinement - started on May 19 with the return of college students to school, the reopening of bars and restaurants, cinemas, theaters and museums, editor's note - has not broken this virtuous dynamic", a-t -he adds.

The minister underlined that "obviously this progressive deconfinement is going well": "we have a drop of 20 to 25% of the circulation of the virus each week" and a "daily rate of hospitalization at a level comparable to September ", before the second wave of the epidemic.

Sunday evening, 14,525 Covid-19 patients were hospitalized against 16,775 the previous Sunday, including 2,527 in "critical care" (2,993 a week earlier), who treat the most serious cases including patients in intensive care, or more than half less than 'at the peak of the third wave when they were around 6,000.

Mr. Véran predicted that France would "descend below 5,000 cases (new per day) then 2,000 cases" but we will not be "sure to have beaten the virus" before November or December if no new wave appears.

Since March 2020, the epidemic has killed 110,027 people in France.

Much will depend on the pace of vaccination as one-fifth of the population (20.3%) is fully vaccinated.

Calling on those first-vaccinated not to relax, the minister invited the French to get vaccinated quickly, if possible before the summer holidays.

© 2021 AFP