Photographer: Benjamin Girette / Bloomberg
Photographer: Benjamin Girette / Bloomberg
The French government is delaying a painful decision to re-lock the country and is considering options to delay new variants of Covid-19, as the current curfew is considered insufficient.
President Emmanuel Macron “has asked for additional analysis” on the spread of the virus before deciding on new restrictions, government spokesman Gabriel Attal said after a defense cabinet meeting Wednesday. Maintaining the status quo is “unlikely,” as the national curfew from 6pm to 6am is not enough, and strict lockdown is an option under consideration, he said.
Macron is under pressure to shut down the economy for the third time in less than a year as doctors and researchers are raising the alarm about coronavirus mutations spreading across the country.
But with a presidential race on the way next year, the French leader will also have to face criticisms of his handling of the crisis, including a slow start to the vaccination campaign. And while rising British cases and deaths demonstrate the dangers of the new virus variants, riots in the Netherlands against a curfew show the risks of tougher measures.
Risk of unrest
Christophe Castaner, head of Macron’s party to the National Assembly, told Le Parisien newspaper that there was also a risk of “civil disobedience” in France should a new lockdown be imposed.
Voters are much less keen on strict measures now than they were at the start of the pandemic, with 93% of adults approving the first lockdown, compared to just 67% for a third, according to a recent Elabe opinion poll.
“I know there is fatigue,” Attal said at the press conference. A decision on whether or not to tighten the measures will depend on health indicators, he said.
France’s second lockdown began in late October and ended in mid-December with a curfew extended earlier this month. It only partially relieved the health system, with hospitalizations and intensive care patients staying more than five times higher than in August.
Economic decline
Restaurants, cafes, clubs, theaters, cinemas and sports venues have been closed since October and are supported by government support, as are many areas of the economy.
A third lockdown would cause an economic contraction of 10% to 18% compared to pre-crisis levels, according to a Treasury Department study quoted by Parisien, depending on the severity of the measures. During the first – and most severe lockdown – in the spring of 2020, activity shrank by more than a third.
While the government expects a strong recovery in its economy in the second half of the year, a new freeze would jeopardize its growth forecasts.
Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire on Wednesday called a third lockdown a “last resort”. A recent survey by the French statistics office showed growing concern among households in January as consumers plan to save more money for tough times. Consumer sentiment is at its lowest since November.
“Let’s see where we are,” said Le Maire. “There is no rush.”
The more contagious British variant of the virus accounted for 9.4% of the cases in an analysis of positive tests in the Paris region between January 11-21. Across France, hospital admissions have risen to their highest levels since early December in the past two weeks, and the number of critically ill Covid ICU patients rose above 3,000 this week.
Macron could make a final decision in the coming days – the Defense Cabinet, a small and tight-knit group of ministers gathering around the president and prime minister, have met over the weekend in the past.
With the help of Helene Fouquet and William Horobin
(Adds a review of the current curfew in the first paragraph, the economic impact of lockdown in the 10th.)