PARIS (Reuters) – Camila Campodonico was working in Paris on Thursday night when the government announced that the city was entering a new blockade to fight COVID-19, and she knew her plans for a meeting with friends at this end weekends were over.
“I heard that and said, ‘Oh, no, not again. A lock. ‘I was not very happy, ”said Campodonico, an Argentine student who works temporarily for a marketing company.
With intensive care units nearly overflowing, French Prime Minister Jean Castex announced that Paris residents could only leave home for essential travel or exercise, and non-essential travel to other parts of the country was banned.
A large number of Paris residents went to the train stations on Friday morning so that they could leave the city before the month-long restrictions will take effect at midnight.
At the Gare de l’Est station in Paris, there were long lines of people at the ticket office. People, some with pets, rushed to board the trains bound for Strasbourg and Luxembourg.
Valentino Armilli, 27, would visit his parents in Thionville, in the Lorraine region of eastern France, over the weekend. He decided to go on Thursday night, because of the new blockade.
“My parents had COVID a month ago and I haven’t seen them since. This weekend is the last time in a long time that I will be able to see them ”, he said.
At the Montparnasse train station, Anna Henry, a 21-year-old student, said she decided to go to her parents’ home in Brittany, western France, describing the last blockade in Paris as “a little too much”.
Anthony Massat, 23, also a student, was taking a train to Toulouse, in southwest France: “There is no block in the south, so it will be a little more free.”
Additional reporting by Lucien Libert; Written by Christian Lowe; Gareth Jones Edition