After having confined in disaster a part of the British to a few days of Christmas, the Prime Minister Boris Johnson had to work on Monday to reassure them of their supplies, jostled because of a new strain of the coronavirus.
In one weekend, the new variant of Covid-19 caused a double explosion.
First the re-containment of 16 million inhabitants of London and the south-east of England, whose family reunions for the holidays are falling apart.
Then the decision of many countries, foremost among which France, to suspend the arrivals of travelers from Great Britain, which is shaking up the entire supply chain of the country, very dependent on truck rotations across the Channel for fresh products.
All this at a time when companies are stockpiling before leaving the single European market on December 31.
As trucks piled up on the roads of southern England, Boris Johnson chaired a crisis meeting from Downing Street before speaking to the press.
"Delays only affect a very small proportion of food entering the UK and as UK supermarket chains have said, the supply chains are strong and robust," he insisted.
"The vast majority of food and our medicine circulate normally."
"We hope to be back for Christmas"
Deeming "really very low" the risk of transmission by truck drivers, he said he discussed the situation with French President Emmanuel Macron who, according to him, said he wanted to "resolve the situation in the coming hours".
After a meeting of experts Monday, the ambassadors of the European Union are to try Tuesday to harmonize the measures decided by the member states to prevent the arrivals, according to European sources.
To cope in the meantime, police in Kent (south-east) have put in place emergency measures to order trucks to park on the sides of the M20 motorway, which serves the Channel Tunnel, to avoid blockage of the entire road network.
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David King, a Birmingham truck driver, was waiting on December 21 to find out how long he will have to stay in Dover after the border blockade.
“We hope to be back for Christmas,” he said.