Freedom does not have the same cost for everyone.
While some are very unlikely to develop even symptoms, others risk their skin at the slightest contact with the disease.
So, even if the government has ruled out this track again this Friday, through the voice of its spokesperson Gabriel Attal, some have already drastically reduced their contacts.
Testimonials.
Cécile, 58, asks her daughter to take a PCR test at every visit
Cécile has been confined since February of last year.
Suffering from serious chronic respiratory pathologies, this 58-year-old audiovisual technician did not want to take any risks, and locked herself up when Italy declared the first European confinement.
For over a year, she has been taking her yoga classes remotely, and also works entirely from home.
She also avoids the crowds in the stores, and does her shopping online, then picks it up.
But above all, the fifty-year-old from Poitiers (Vienne) has hardly seen anyone for a year.
Except his daughter, a student in Paris, who is systematically tested before coming, and who "must be in her sixth PCR".
Cécile also takes a few walks in the forest with friends on weekends, but all wear an FFP2 mask, which is more protective than the mainstream models.
The time is long.
"But after so much effort, it would be stupid to expose yourself now," she sighs, confessing mostly to worry about her daughter.
"I will be ready to see her less, so that she has more freedom, young people must be deconfined!"
Me, I manage psychologically, but it depresses me to see that she is not well, ”she regrets.
Bernard, 67, self-isolated in Finistère
As a psychiatrist, Bernard Elie has a front row seat to see the considerable damage caused by isolation among young people, and sometimes in dramatic proportions.
But with his recent recovery from a major operation, heart problems and diabetes, the 67-year-old is classified as at risk.
After confinement in the spring locked at his home in Montrouge (Hauts-de-Seine) with his wife, Bernard Elie resolved to take the lead.
Anticipating successive and lasting epidemic waves, the doctor decided to move to the family home in Pleuven, in Finistère.
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Since then, the outings have been reduced to walks on vast almost deserted beaches, and it is his wife who takes care of the races with great care.
The 60-year-old calls his children very regularly, and tells beautiful stories on the phone to his young grandchildren "to keep a bond".
He considers it “discriminatory” to place only part of the population under house arrest.
But he admits that encouraging the most vulnerable to protect themselves as he does, by appealing to their free will "would not be stupid".
Nicole, 81, is waiting for the vaccine
After a first “complicated” confinement, alone in her Parisian apartment, Nicole also chose to go into exile on the west coast.
Since June, this 81-year-old retiree has not left her second home in Guéthary (Pyrénées-Atlantiques), in the Basque Country.
Not even for Christmas, celebrated far from Paris, from her daughter and her grandchildren.
And no question of moving before having at least received his second injection, scheduled for Wednesday.
She knows doctors call for caution, even after being vaccinated, because of the development of potentially resistant variants.
Still, Nicole took the vaccination very seriously, seeking to make an appointment at the first announcements.
"As a frail elderly person, my contribution to the collective is to get vaccinated as quickly as possible", she argues.
To last, she can still visit part of her family right in front of her home in Guéthary.
The opportunity to have lunch with a little company.
A chance that allows him "to find a balance between the need to isolate himself to protect himself, while trying to keep morale."
Babette, 78, did not want to "take any risks"
But Nicole is not the only one to have deprived herself of a Christmas with her family.
“I didn't want to take any risks,” Babette also sighs.
For almost a year, the life of this 78-year-old retiree has been reduced to walks outside in her town of Ris-Orangis, making phone calls to family and friends.
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"What I miss is to see herself in real life" she laments, evoking the good times of the past, the Parisian getaways on weekends, when she went to museums with a friend.
She says she is "angry" for the delays around the vaccine, for which she has still not been able to make an appointment.
And if a re-containment "would not change much" to her current habits, she considers it more pleasant to isolate oneself than to be forced to do so.
Hélène, 77, does her shopping “because you have to”
“My half of beer on the bistro terrace, that's what I regret the most!
»Assures Helene for her part, laughing in her mocking voice muffled by the mask.
Yet the septuagenarian who lives alone in Paris is now forced to limited outings.
"The races because you have to", but with a meticulous health protocol: the mask screwed to the face, and a regular swig of hydroalcoholic gel on the hands.
Apart from these local commercial excursions, the 77-year-old retiree has hardly known anyone for over a year now.
Only “two or three friends”, also very careful, whom she visited.
A general reconfinement?
Hélène would consent to it "if it proves to be essential", but does not wish it.
And to better endure her loneliness, she will soon be going to her country house in Oise.
"In the middle of my garden, with my books and my best friends the birds, I'm happy, I don't need people," she claims mischievously.
However, she is waiting for the vaccine on a firm footing, without having so far managed to get an appointment.
