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PARIS (Reuters) – A French theme park caused a stir by hosting an exhibition attended by another 9,000 people, bypassing the legal limit of more than 5,000 meetings imposed to curb the spread of the coronavirus.
Le Puy du Fou, which organizes recreations of old French events, allowed 9,000 of its 13,000 seats to be occupied on Saturday by installing its outdoor stands in 3 separate blocks separated by plexiglass screens.
Last week, President Emmanuel Macron’s government prolonged the ban on demonstrations for more than 5,000 people through October 30, but said prefects (regional state directors appointed through the president) can make exceptions.
The Puy du Fou occasion sparked a typhoon of protests on social media and through opposition politicians.
“There are social estrangement regulations and there are repeals for friends of the president. Macron had complex the (re) opening of the Puy du Fou (after the blockage of coronavirus). They are now allowed to create clusters of coronavirus,” the secretary said. Julien Bayou wrote on her Twitter account.
Culture Minister Roselyne Bachelot has denied that Puy du Fou owner Philippe De Villiers, a former conservative minister who has made two presidential offers, has won special treatment. “Puy du Fou has not been given favors,” Bachelot told BFM tv on Monday.
She said the occasions for more than 5,000 people can get the go-ahead as long as they apply individual seats, strict social estrangement and mandatory masking.
Other primary sporting and cultural occasions, such as the addition of football matches in large-capacity outdoor stadiums, have allowed more than 5,000 people to be held.
De Villiers is not a member of Macron’s party, however, he has spoken publicly about his friendship with the president, who made a high profile at Puy du Fou in 2016.
The prefect of Vendée stated that one of the reasons for the legal occasion is that the region had COVID-19 infection rates below the national average. But Gilles Pialoux, an infectious disease specialist at the Paris hospital in Tenon, told France Inter radio that this is irrelevant because visitors to Puy du Fou come from all over France.
(Report through Geert De Clercq; Edited through Mark Heinrich)