“We could feel the tide turning,” says Isabelle, fatalistic.
This 56-year-old Parisian took off with her companion on Thursday, just before Jean Castex announced that twenty departments could be under new restrictions as of next week.
The couple headed for Bielle (Pyrénées-Atlantiques), a small village nestled in the Ossau valley.
On the program: wide open spaces, breathtaking landscapes, and unmasked walks.
"As our respective children are grown up now, we always take our holidays out of time with the school holidays", explains this designer, "so we had planned to leave later, but this week we quickly understood that later, it would be without doubt too late.
"
Chain visits from friends
The prospect of a partial reconfinement at the weekend, as in Nice and Dunkirk, also upset the program of Sylvain and Anne-Claire.
This couple of engineers from Lille, aged 30 and 29, had a baby on February 9.
Between the short and choppy nights, Sylvain's work and the curfew, "our social life only exists on weekends," says the thirty-something.
And despite busy weekends, the two young people have not yet had time to introduce their child to all their loved ones.
So this weekend, the program promises to be busy.
First, the visits of friends who have come to see their little girl will follow one another in their living room.
But the couple have also planned a vast plan of strategic races, after taking an inventory of everything they still need to take care of their newborn baby.
"In case it is more difficult to do it later, because as we do not know what sauce we are going to be eaten in, we have to adapt to everything", anticipates Sylvain, whom the idea of re-containment does not delight. truly not.
"A part of my family in Brittany has not yet seen the baby, and they will not be able to come anymore", he sighs in advance.
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An effervescence tinged with anguish shared by Valentin.
The 28-year-old thesis in computer science confides it: he has never ceased to be active this week, to move right to left to see "a maximum of people", "to fill up on social ties", before a possible house arrest.
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This weekend, the Lille resident will spend it with a group of friends in a country house in Vendée, half an hour from Nantes (Loire-Atlantique).
“It's all about recharging the batteries together, just in case.
It's going to be good even if we don't do much except drink shots in the garden.
"
In fact, the young teacher-researcher is very afraid of a return to the solitude of confinement.
So to make the most of what could be the last days of freedom, he agreed to fall behind in his work.
"I will have to catch up with all this in the weeks to come, when we may be locked up again," he projects himself, resigned.
Outdoor brunch
If he does not leave Paris, celebrations between friends are also planned in the weekend of Thibault.
The young executive turned 29 this week, and intends to celebrate his birthday with his friends on Sunday, during a brunch in the form of a picnic in the Bois de Vincennes.
Outdoors to limit the risk of contamination, and during the day to stay within the limits of the curfew.
"It's been too long since we no longer live, we no longer see each other, so we are going to take this breath of freedom more than ever!
»Exclaims Thibault, who mentions the suffering of his student friends, particularly isolated.
Despite the return of coolness, many like him are tempted to take the air, even staying in the city, as long as the rules in force allow it.
VIDEO. Reconfining Paris for three weeks: "This is only a hypothesis", defends the town hall
"With my best friend, we still hesitate between the Canal Saint-Martin and the Buttes-Chaumont, but it is certain, the day of Saturday, we are going to sit outside to chat," says Olivia, a 36-year-old Parisian at the unemployment for a year now.
“In fact, for weeks, we have been enjoying as much as we can all the time, because we know that the possibility of re-containment is in the cards,” Mehdi also exposes.
The 29-year-old Parisian executive had long been able to organize a last-minute weekend in Champagne with friends, "just in case".
After the Prime Minister's announcements on Thursday, followed by statements from the first deputy mayor of Paris on a possible three-week bell-lock of the capital, they put their plan into action.
To "mark the occasion, drink good bottles and enjoy the February sun".