To ensure that the inhabitants of areas under increased vigilance do not relax their efforts, the government wants, via the prefects, to toughen up the tone.
If they escaped a reconfinement on the weekend (apart from Pas-de-Calais), 23 French departments are affected by four additional measures from this Friday evening.
This Thursday, during his weekly press conference, Prime Minister Jean Castex explained that he had motivated his decisions by analyzing the latest figures and his discussions with the prefects.
“Our health establishments are still under strong pressure, with an increase in the number of people in intensive care over the last week,” he began in the preamble.
Thus, in Pas-de-Calais, confinement at weekends is accompanied by compulsory closure for non-food businesses of more than 5,000 m².
In the 22 other departments under reinforced surveillance, large retail spaces of more than 10,000 m² will be closed.
Until now, since the end of January, only structures over 20,000 m² have been affected.
The noose on these large non-food stores is therefore tightening.
Demonstrations may be banned
Another measure announced by the Prime Minister: more than 25 million inhabitants will have to force themselves to wear a mask as soon as they move in urban areas.
Jean Castex has indeed asked the prefects to impose the wearing of masks in all urban areas where this was not already the case.
Finally, after the controversies caused by the dissemination of images of large gatherings, in Lyon or on the banks of the Seine in Paris, last weekend, the government wanted to toughen up.
"The images that we saw again last weekend in some big cities, including Paris, are simply not reasonable", judges the Prime Minister.
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Thus, the representatives of the State in the territories are invited to "prohibit or regulate the access to very frequented places".
In Paris, several streets were already affected by a ban on alcohol consumption.
A measure that dates back to the end of January and which had followed in the footsteps of a similar decision in the hypercentre of Lyon.
Jean Castex also specified that the prefects will now be able to prohibit events organized in public space "especially during weekends, when they present a proven health risk with regard to their organizational conditions".
This possibility will be offered to prefects from midnight Friday.
