At the end of the Council of Ministers, Jean Castex announced the end of the obligation to wear a mask outside on Thursday, and the end of the curfew from Sunday, June 20 at 6 a.m.

A lifting of the restrictions which intervenes 10 days before the planned date and which is not only because of the improvement of the health situation. 

The end of the mask and the curfew.

To everyone's surprise, this Wednesday, Jean Castex announced at the end of the Council of Ministers a return to an almost normal life for the French with the end of the obligation to wear a mask outside on Thursday and the lifting curfew from Sunday.

24 hours after a low since mid-October of serious cases of Covid-19 in intensive care, with less than 2,000 cases, the Prime Minister has therefore brought forward the lifting of the measures by 10 days [initially scheduled for June 30, editor's note], arguing that "the health situation is improving faster than we had hoped".

But this is not the only reason that pushed the executive to let go. 

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Two reasons not mentioned by Jean Castex

Because two other essential reasons are behind this decision.

First of all, the observation that the curfew is no longer really respected in many cities.

So rather than asking the police to issue massive fines every evening while taking the risk of annoying the French, the government preferred to anticipate. 

In addition, the legal aspect must be taken into consideration.

Because in less than a week, several sprains were made to the rule.

The first for the Roland Garros semi-final between Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic, the second during the France-Germany Euro match.

In the first case, the spectators had the pleasure of being able to attend until the end of this match between the number 3 and the world number 1, in the second, the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin in person had called Tuesday evening the police to show "leniency". 

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A risk for the government

But these derogations have consequences: if a person is now fined for non-compliance with the curfew and if he goes to court for inequality of law, there is a great risk for the government.

The Council of State could indeed consider that there is no reason to authorize an exemption from the curfew for sporting events and not for other events of daily life. 

It is for all these reasons that the government preferred to end the curfew. The last will therefore take place during the night from Saturday to Sunday, from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m.