News that the French government had ordered the closure of Marseille’s restaurants and bars hit the country’s largest city as a burden last week, but even when small business owners took to the streets of the city, grunts may be heard throughout the country. as the government struggled to fight a momentary wave of the virus.
It’s a very different environment than last spring. France first groping its COVID reaction, but controlled to change course with a national blockade from mid-March to mid-May. Despite economic concern, the French have taken steps to greatly reduce spread.
But after a summer of holidays and bars, the virus returned strongly, but nowhere with the same number of deaths, so the strategy to combat it has proven to be deeply divisive nationally and locally. He had licked the pandemic, the prospect of a slow closure, and the reimposition of restrictions revealed the tiredness of a population tired of sacrifices and inconveniences.
These divisions are most obvious in Marseille, where local government and doctors have disagreed on how to take seriously the outbreak of cases that led to this summer’s largest outbreak.
Most of the population of this Mediterranean town denounces a stronger-than-expected summer tourist season: in the first part of August, for example, the hotel occupancy rate of the town is 4. 3% higher than at the same time in 2019, according to the regional tourism agency. While foreign visitors have fallen dramatically, a national crusade to convince others to explore their homeland has controlled to bring unprecedented rates of French to Marseille to play on its beaches and enjoy its famous nightlife.
Several other points may also have bothered the stage in Marseille. The city has a poverty rate of 26%, making it one of the poorest in France. Add to the dense life situations of the city and this of tourists, and it turns out that Marseille is a barrel of pandemic gunpowder.
In July, case rates began to rise. Local medical officials have gradually fine-tuned their tone, urging citizens to take more precautions. Marseille is located in the French branch of Bouches-du-Rhénes. The branch exceeded the 50-case rate of 100,000 inhabitants in July, a point at which officials can impose stricter measures. Despite making the mask mandatory and wearing a curfew for bars at the end of August, numbers continued to rise every week.
Hospitals started sounding the alarm last month and, in doing so, made headlines across the country.
With the increase in cases, local fitness officials began to revive the measures they had abandoned during the summer. In mid-August, after the number of cases put the Marseille region back into the official danger zone, the local fitness government reactivated its white plan (white plan) This was the manual developed in France to allow hospitals to reorganize their services to, among other things, create special care sets for COVID patients with the national government.
Within a few weeks, those Marseille sets were close to saturation. Public Assistance – Hospitals de Marseille (AP-HM) manages four public hospitals that together have 221 COVID beds, adding 177 occupied on 26 September, adding forty-five beds of extensive care with four3 patients.
The stage was tense at AP-HM North Hospital, a giant fashionable design perched on a hill in some of the region’s poorest neighborhoods. As we went outside last week, life seemed general and quiet. Upon entering the emergency room, ambulances arrived at a rare rate, passing a hand-painted sign hanging from a fence thanking hospital staff. At the main entrance, moms carrying newborns walked past hospital staff queuing in a Bento food truck for lunch.
Only social estating and mask gave an indication of the wider crisis. Inside, however, they painted an urgent image in development.
In an interview at BFMTV in France two weeks ago, Sabine Valera, president of the National Federation of Resuscitation Nurses and Nurse of the Northern Hospital, warned that the establishment might have to start restricting the treatment of other patients to create even more area. coVID patients.
“Right now, we’re postponing operations and other remedies for patients who don’t have COVID,” he said. “But the COVID unit is complete right now. So we have to open other places. “
As instances increased and COVID sets increased, Hospitals in Marseille made urgent appeals for more doctors and nurses. While French hospitals in the spring had interrupted many remedies, the drive to continue the normal remedy meant that staff were scarce for COVID sets. In August, AP-HM hospitals have hired 126 other people, but are still looking for more.
The regional fitness firm also relaunched weekly meetings of public and personal hospital officials to coordinate their responses. In addition to these internal plans, local fitness officials continued to call on citizens to double their measures to curb the spread.
“Preserving our hospital capabilities by applying barrier measures,” tweeted Dr. Dominique Rossi, chairman of AP-HM’s medical commission. “HELP ME!! We want you to involve the tide. “
Meanwhile, President Emmanuel Macron’s government seeks to avoid a momentary shutdown.
Your government’s strategy focuses on decentralization and allows local officials to have more say about when and how to respond, allowing for greater nuances in fitness policies. figures observed in the spring.
France reported 155,586 CASES of COVID in the two weeks leading up to September 29, including 15,797 new cases on Friday, with barely the record of 16,096 set on Thursday, to its national fitness ministry.
This led French Health Minister Olivier Véran on 23 September to announce a new COVID formula that included a hierarchy of areas that activated automatic regulations for cities as their instances increased. The new formula has five colors: green (low risk), pink (alert), red (enhanced alert), dark red (maximum alert), and gray (emergency state).
Dark or dark areas face new restrictions.
For the 11 villages in the red category, the bars have a curfew at 10 pm, public meetings will have to be 10 other people or less, visits to nursing homes are limited and gyms will have to close. france’s largest cities, as well as Toulouse, Paris, Lyon, Lille and Nice.
This provoked outrage from local politicians, citizens and bar owners. According to government follow-up data, bars and restaurants had been the cause of a giant percentage of epidemics. Many wondered why they decided when schools remained open and many offices.
The restorers of Lille organized a demonstration contrary to 22 hours. Curfew. The mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, denounced the curfew of the restaurants, it didn’t make sense.
“The vast majority of the owners of our cafes and places to eat have done wonderful things with their public area and I need to give them my full help regarding the restrictive measures that have unfortunately been taken without any consultation,” he said on BFM TV. , she and several other mayors of primary cities are about to meet with Prime Minister Jean Castez to discuss other measures imaginable if cases continue to increase.
Only 2 zones fall into the dark red category: Guadeloupe and Marseille. These unfortunate spaces have had to close bars, restaurants and other public pick-up locations.
The match between Véran and Marseille began shortly after her press conference on 23 September, when Marseille’s new mayor, Micele Rubirola, made her Twitter anger transparent.
“I learned with amazement and anger at a resolution that did not consult the mayor of Marseille,” Rubirola writes. “There was nothing on the fitness stage to justify this announcement. I am only content that the others in Marseille are victims of political resolutions that no one can understand.
Véran replied that he had informed a deputy mayor before his press conference, to which Rubirola noted that his call had arrived 10 minutes in advance.
At a press conference the next morning, Deputy Mayor Benoit Payan asked the national government to delay the measures for 10 days to give the city time to show that the rate of new instances is declining. He argued that Marseille is already doing more than any other city by delivering 700,000 loose masks consistent with conducting 10,000 tests consistent with the day.
“If until the end of next week the signals start to rise again, we will be able to make the mandatory decisions,” he said. “But until then, it is imperative that state measures are frozen. “
Véran arrived in Marseille on Friday to calm his nerves, but hoisted most of the day through protesters and restaurateurs who shouted defiantly that would not close. In the morning, Bernard Marty, president of the region’s hotel and restaurant union, led a demonstration that attracted a lot of people. other people on the streets outside the commercial courthouse. “We’ll stay open!” Marty screamed through his mask on a loudspeaker as the crowd clapped.
As Véran spent the day visiting hospitals and meeting with local politicians, he held a press conference on his decisions.
“If we take the threat of waiting to see if it improves, we run the risk of having to impose even more powerful measures in several days or weeks,” Véran said.
Meanwhile, rhetoric against the closures has continued to toughen. The president of the regional government where Marseille is located has threatened to take the case to court to avoid closures. Another deputy mayor, Samia Ghali, said police would not compel the restaurants and bars that remained open, according to French media.
While local officials were furious with Véran, they were also aware of the noise that local hospital officials were making about the approaching crisis.
Didier Raoult of Marseille, the debatable microbiologist with heavy, untied hair and a fa orce personality of nature, has attacked so much traditional medical wisdom about COVID. In a letter received through the French newspaper Le Monde, he writes that hospital leaders have disproportionate things with their public statements and that the local stage has stabilized.
“You owe for the unrawary measures taken against the people through the Minister of Health,” Raoult said.
Throughout Friday, local officials continued to argue to Veran that new instances were slowing down and that they would want to be given more time before such drastic action was taken. Although Veran refused to overturn the decision, he agreed to allow its review this weekend. , with the option that some parts are simply calm if the symptoms were favorable.
In fact, almost a week later, it turns out that local politicians were right in their assessment.
After a hot weekend while the controversy was simmering in Marseille, AP-HM CEO announced Monday that he would begin publishing updates. After reaching a maximum of 177 patients with COVID on 28 September, 50 of them in resuscitation, the number had decreased. the next two days to 153 patients with COVID, 43 of whom were in resuscitation.
At a press conference on Tuesday, hospital leaders changed their tone significantly. Rossi told reporters that he had stabilized and that hospitals were “under control. “Although he said primary procedures such as surgeries at the center and transplants had been postponed.
It should be noted that this will lead Véran to reconsider the closures of places to eat this weekend.
Just before Veran imposed his new measures last week, a stopover in town showed just how exhausted other people are at the demands to fight the virus.
Standing in the tent of his nautical clothing team overlooking a lot of sailboats moored in the old port of the city, owner Remi wore a blouse and a Breton striped mask. Forget the news of the pandemic. ” My friend follows the news, but I don’t need everything I need in my head all the time,” she said. “Of course, I take steps to protegerme. no traumatized by it. “
Walking through Marseille’s Old Port on a cloudy and rainy afternoon, there was not much evidence that fitness officers were heard. Nearly a quarter of pedestrians were not dressed in masks or had lowered them, with no application symptoms. A bar, a trio of friends who had beers during a week-long holiday in northern France, simply shrugged, shook their heads and laughed when asked if they were following the building’s news in cases of COVID in Marseille.
As we entered the narrow, winding streets of the city and moved away from the city center, the number of other people dressed in masks decreased further. were ubiquitous.
City control stations run daily in other neighborhoods. When the rain began, about 50 more people covered the the other in front of an orange tent at lunchtime, holding their national fitness card. Mehti, a graduate student, said he came here because he had symptoms, besides coughing, he doubted he had coronavirus. “Prevention is more than cure,” he says.
Inside the store, moans may be heard when swabs slide deep into people’s nostrils. After his control, Guillaume Danesi, a young IT professional, left the store and joined his friends as one of them shouted, “What a joy!The organization had come to take over before a planned holiday in Italy. “I hope the control is negative and the border is open,” Danesi said. “We’ll keep our hands crossed. “
Sitting on a nearer bench, a mother had taken her two children, one to school number one and the other a teenager. The older brother had been discharged from school with symptoms of COVID, a confusing scenario through the mother’s paintings as an instructor at a public school.
She had made a check at a personal lab that had promised effects in five or six days, but arrived at the control station because the effects would come in 72 hours. Long checkup times remain a source of frustration in France.
Until they have the effects, they get stuck at home. If she or her child has a positive test, they will be quarantined for a few more weeks. While explaining the tangled Internet of scenarios based on the effects of his tests, his voice revealed the non-public tiredness that now weighs on others seven months after the start of the pandemic.
“It’s a genuine procedure to handle it every day,” he says. “Especially with two children. Now I’m asymptomatic, but if I’m sick, I don’t know what I’d do. “
I am an American journalist in Toulouse, France, and I write about technology, travel, culture, politics and entertainment. Before I moved to France in 2014, I spent 15
I am an American journalist founded in Toulouse, France, and I write about technology, Array culture, politics and entertainment. Before moving to France in 2014, I spent 15 years covering Silicon Valley for the Los Angeles Times and The San Jose Mercury News. I also run the French website Carrefour.