France is preparing for a New Year’s Eve with …

From Paris

It almost looked like a normal day before. Crowded streets, smiling people full of energy, queues in front of certain stores. But this is only an illusion of a few hours. France is deformed this Tuesday, December 15 and this chimerical freedom lasts until 8 o’clock in the evening, when a strict curfew comes into effect until 6 a.m. that replaces the full lockdown. What is happening responds to a worse-than-expected scenario that concerns not only France but almost all of Europe: the percentage of infections due to covid-19 is much higher than the estimates and the restrictive measures are therefore much more severe than those calculated two months ago: nearly two million four hundred thousand cases, 6.2% of people positive after the test, 2,865 clusters under analysis, 58,282 deaths, 8,722 people hospitalized during the seven last days, of which 1,100 in intensive care.

In Europe, there are nearly 16 million people infected for a total of 375,147 deaths since December 31, 2019. The Christmas holidays are, in this context, a red line before which the authorities have extended the containment barriers. This is the case in countries like France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Croatia, Sweden, the Netherlands and Spain.

In France, the lack of definition Tuesday allows freedom with a dropper. Travel without proof or affidavit is authorized, as well as travel between regions. However, at 8 p.m. the party ends as the curfew begins. Bars and restaurants will remain closed until an unknown date, as will theaters, cinemas, museums and concert halls. December 15 had been set as the reopening date, but the persistence of infections delayed the reopening. This sets up a partial Christmas and a New Year with no holidays. Christmas gatherings are permitted with the recommendation that a maximum of six people attend. However, on December 31 there will be no party to throw out the window this year. There will be no exceptions on the 31st as the curfew will go into effect at 8 p.m. which means no one will be able to travel that night unlike Christmas.

With 236 cases per 100,000 inhabitants, France is far from having stabilized the progression of covid-19. This unfavorable configuration is repeated somewhat throughout the European Union. In London, the increase in cases has led the executive to repeat the so-called Tier 3, i.e. the maximum level of alert. Germany has also started a restrictive process until January 10 with a severe closure of all that concerns public sociability. The Netherlands (10,000 infections per day) and Italy repeat the Franco-German model because they are still on the list of EU countries which have seen contagion curves continuously increase or they stagnated at very high peaks.

The pandemic will have strangled the lives of millions of the world’s citizens at the same time as it brought economies to their knees and left sectors such as culture facing an abyss. This Tuesday, In Paris and in several cities, cultural actors demonstrated against measures that deprived a sector that lives from the presence of the public of any activity. The situation could not be more contrasted: while the representatives of the cultural world demonstrated on the Place de la Bastille, with the exception of restaurants and bars, the vast majority of shops were open and with many people. “For some everything is possible, for others nothing”, he said. PageI12 Nadine, a 28-year-old actress who has lost all of her income. Pierre, a comedian from the capital, aptly recalled the double standard of liberalism: “they closed theaters, cinemas, bookstores, museums, but when this horrible Black Friday arrived, they let the system work, people gathered in the stores. or that there was a crowd in the windows of the Galleries Lafayette. “Culture was deemed ‘non-essential’ by the authorities and the industry was last relegated.” Art is the weapon of my tears, “said a message painted on cardboard. Another said:” Art is a weapon of mass construction.

For now, the government and science are releasing advice for the coming weeks. Between Christmas and New Year, you enter a dangerous zone of contacts, the consequences of which will be seen in the first weeks of 2021. The scientific committee which advises President Emmanuel Macron has recommended that the population self-confine by the end of the year.