No masks, no transport. The idea is gaining ground. After Edouard Philippe last Sunday, it is Emmanuel Macron's turn, himself, to broach the subject. This Thursday, during a teleconference with twenty-two mayors, the President of the Republic dropped this little sentence “We will probably have to impose the wearing of masks. "
According to several sources participating in discussions on deconfinement in transport, the obligation to wear a mask has even become a certainty. "It just lacks formalization, says a source familiar with the matter. It's the only way. "
Wearing a mask would indeed be the only way to ensure the health security of travelers, knowing that social distancing is complicated, if not impossible, to enforce.
"If we maintained a meter distance between passengers at Saint-Lazare station, there would be 100 km of line," says a transport specialist. Same calculation from the National Federation of Passenger Transport (FNTV): “In school buses, if children have to be seated every other seat, the number of buses must be doubled. And we don't have them. "
Who will supply the masks?
However, there is no question of crowding the travelers as before confinement. “The idea is to circulate much more transport than demand, says an operator who is participating in the discussions. Currently, there is 30% supply for 10% traffic. On May 11, it would rather be 70% to 80% of supply for 30% of traffic. This is what is hoped for by combining telework and smoothing the start and finish times at work and in schools. According to a RATP unionist, the Régie is preparing to circulate, on average, 70% of metros and even 100% on automatic lines as of May 11.
Several questions remain. "Everyone wants to impose masks, but no one says who will distribute them," notes Bastien Berthier, Unsa-RATP delegate. The officers had to fight for it. If the operators, in particular the SNCF, have already announced that they were unable to supply millions of travelers, other solutions exist.
This Thursday, Emmanuel Macron encouraged the mayors to massively buy masks for the general public. Valérie Pécresse, president (Libres!) Of the Ile-de-France region, encourages Ile-de-France companies to place grouped orders for their employees via the regional purchasing center. "Between communities, businesses or even on their own, the French should be able to provide a mask to travel by May 11," wants to believe this specialist in urban transport.
Decisive meetings this weekend
Another question, how to enforce this wearing of the mask in transport? "We have told the government that it is not our mission," warns the same operator. The idea would rather be that this obligation is controlled by sworn persons, including the police. But the best solution is collective discipline and good citizenship. As for verbalizing the offenders with "dissuasive fines" as demanded by Valérie Pécresse, in a letter sent to the Prime Minister on Wednesday? "We don't know," replied a participant in government meetings. Jean Castex's cell (Editor's note: instructed by the executive to prepare the deconfinement) is a black hole where light enters but nothing comes out. "
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Questions about deconfinement in transport should be decided this weekend, after inter-ministerial meetings. "It's a terrible equation to find," sums up another operator. Transport must work efficiently and reassure travelers, to avoid having hundreds of kilometers of traffic jams on the roads, without it being a nest in Covid-19. While protecting transport workers and users. "
As for whether the French will be able to travel beyond their region on May 11, Jérôme Salomon, the Director General of Health, provided an initial response. To the deputies of the National Assembly fact-finding mission on the Covid-19 who questioned him this Thursday on the deconfinement, he indicated: "What must be avoided are interregional transport and population exchanges between massively affected areas and areas hardly affected, (or) this is how we will reactivate the circulation of the virus. "
