The French president says he has no reason to regret his refusal to impose a third national block earlier this year, although the rise in coronavirus infections is overwhelming his country’s hospitals and more than 1,000 people with the virus die every week. .
President Emmanuel Macron’s government emphasized the importance of keeping children in school and in business as the pandemic extends into the second year. The families of the French victims of COVID-19 say, however, that Macron turned a blind eye to their suffering.
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“We were right not to implement a blockade in France at the end of January because we did not have the explosion of cases that all models predicted,” said Macron at the end of a European Union summit. “There will be no mea culpa on my part. I have no remorse and I will not acknowledge failure.”
For months, France advocated a “third way” between confinement and freedom, including a curfew across the country and closing restaurants, museums, cinemas, gyms, many shopping malls and a few other businesses. The measures have kept France’s infection rate stable for a while, but it is rising sharply again this month.
French President Emmanuel Macron arrives at the ‘Center for Cooperation policiere et douaniere’ (French-Spanish Police and Customs Cooperation Center) during a visit to tighten border controls at the crossing between Spain and France, in Le Perthus, France, Thursday , November . 5, 2020. (Guillaume Horcajuelo, Pool via AP)
France recorded the fourth highest number of confirmed cases of the virus and one of the highest numbers of deaths from a pandemic, with 93,378 lives lost. Intensive care units are again at or above capacity in Paris and several other regions due to a flood of critically ill patients with COVID-19.
Many medical professionals urged the French government for weeks to impose stronger restrictions in response to the most contagious virus variant first identified in Britain, which is now the dominant form of the virus in France.
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“There is no such thing as a zero virus situation, and this is true for all countries in Europe. We are not an island, and even the islands that protected themselves sometimes saw the virus coming back, ”said Macron. “But we felt that, with the curfew and the measures we had, we could handle it.”
Relatives of people with COVID-19 who died accessed social media to express their anger at Macron’s comments.
“I started listening to him and it started to irritate me and I had to change the channel,” said Lionel Petitpas, whose wife, Joelle, died last year.
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“It is crazy. Macron, the Prime Minister, they always think they are making the right decision. As a citizen, I declare not, because we are in exactly the same situation as a year ago,” Petitpas, who started an association to allow families to mourn the victims of the virus together, he told The Associated Press.
He recognized the challenges faced by those who lost jobs and livelihoods due to the pandemic. But he asked, “What is the point of an economy if there is no one left healthy enough to run it?”
While the government is determined to avoid a new national blockade, Macron said that tougher measures could be announced in the coming days. Last week, the government closed non-essential stores and imposed travel restrictions on residents of Paris and several other regions, but some doctors fear that this will not be enough to delay the new outbreak.
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“We have had a 100% occupancy rate for almost a month. We have extended our capabilities to the maximum,” said Dr. Mohamed El Hadi Djerad, from the Pierre Beregovoy de Nevers Hospital in Burgundy, to the local broadcaster France-3. “We are in a crisis situation.”
The infection rate in the Burgundy region has doubled in two weeks.