A short week ago, in Paris, the Centquatre welcomed Yvan Navarro, a Chilean visual artist who works on the play of light and optics with neon lights.
This Saturday, the trendy art center in eastern Paris, rue Curial (19th century), had a new look.
A row of 20 gray boxes transformed into a mini-consultation room, myriad of nurses in blue chasubles and reception staff in pink waistcoats stamped "Mairie de Paris DASES" and ... coming and going of people elderly waiting for the injection, some with canes and a walker.
The Centquatre, transformed into a giant dispensary, more exactly into a vaccination center against Covid-19, the largest in Paris, welcomed 1,000 patients this Saturday.
It will be open this Sunday for 1,000 other patients.
“We had chosen the Centquatre in January, as a vaccination center, decrypts Anne Souyris, assistant (EELV) of Anne Hidalgo (PS) in charge of public health.
It is a large closed museum.
We also said to ourselves that when the doses arrived, we would be ready to cope.
"And to add:" The XIXth, classified political district of the city, is also one of the most contaminated districts of Paris ".
Danielle welcomes the quick organization./LP/Céline Carez
“We were warned Thursday evening, summarizes for his part, smiling but very much in demand, Dr. Nassar.
We had to put it together in 48 hours with the City of Paris and everything is ready!
"Thirty professionals from SOS Médecins, mobilized for the" Pfizer 95% and Moderna "vaccine.
Danielle, who came from the 12th arrondissement, welcomes “the organization.
it was quick.
"" It had been two months that I tried to have a date, details the septuagenarian.
I watched Doctolib several times a day.
And yesterday, miracle, I saw that there was room here!
"
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A few small hiccups, however.
Claude, 77, came with his wife, was not registered on Doctolib.
Great lord, the octogenarian let his wife pass.
" I'll be back !
I don't want to catch Covid-19.
"
Claude came "for plums" ./ LP / Philippe Lavieille
At the other end of Paris, one of the 20 other open centers, it's a change of atmosphere.
Rue Amélie, in the chic 7th district, stronghold of Rachida Dati, the mayor (LR), several elderly patients have been turned away.
“I came with my 80 year old mother.
I am told that she must come back to make an appointment!
With his canes!
That you can't do it over the phone.
And that the waiting period is about a month.
"
Xavier, 72, “pathology with comorbidity” also complains.
“I came with my prescription.
I was made to sit down.
Then the man at the reception told me
I don't make an appointment anymore!
It was 2:30 p.m.
In the end, I have to come back!
Xavier denounces "a real gap between the speech of the mayor and reality".
The center, managed by a service provider, "runs very well", defends Emmanuelle Dauvergne, assistant to the town hall of the 7th district.
But Rachida Dati's right-hand man confirms the appointments to be made on site and not by phone and "the waiting period of a little over a month".
However, she insists "for the over 80s, we phone as soon as a slot becomes available and we can bring the appointments forward."
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“This huge operation requires coordination, tackle Anne Souyris.
Rachida Dati wanted to work alone in her corner with a lab.
On the contrary, we must work together and now move quickly.
"
In Nice, vaccination marathon operation
In the metropolis of the Côte d'Azur, in the middle of the second weekend of containment, the operation to vaccinate 12,000 people in 48 hours began this Saturday morning with a (very) long coil of barriers and an unexpected fanfare for access the Nice Exhibition Center, one of the three sites mobilized in the town.
Inside this giant two-story vaccination center, it's another music: that of the big day crowd.
The flow is imposing, continuous, without big traffic jams.
“It's well organized,” says Anne-Marie, a 51-year-old primary school teacher without comorbidities, who has just received her first dose of AstraZeneca.
She registered at the beginning of January on the Internet platform set up by the metropolis which currently has more than 100,000 candidates and in which the metropolis has drawn to summon people.
In the morning, a long queue took shape in front of the Nice Exhibition Center./AFP/Valéry Hache
"I did not think I could be vaccinated so quickly, when I received the appointment SMS I was super happy," she adds despite her reluctance on the subject a few months ago.
“I told myself that there was no hindsight, but I have evolved, I think it's a necessity if you want to resume a normal life, she believes.
And then if I want to see my husband who is currently working in Saudi Arabia again, I have no choice and neither does he.
"
In the boxes where the injections are carried out out of sight, a nurse from the CHU de Nice is waiting for the next volunteer.
Paradoxically, like many caregivers in France, she is not vaccinated.
"I hesitate, I am not too motivated for AstraZeneca, too many people around me have had side effects," she says.
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Joël and Karine, 59 and 57, employees at the MSA, however, did not ask the question.
They too were registered on the online dating platform.
They were contacted on Thursday evening.
“I am not particularly distressed by the Covid-19.
We thought we would be entitled to it in June, it's a good surprise, ”said the gentleman.
“I waited fifty minutes to get my vaccination certificate, but that's okay,” adds his wife.
The arrival of the Minister of Health in Nice may have accelerated things here.
"
The punch operation this weekend will indeed significantly increase the figures in the Nice metropolis, whose incidence rate has been declining for a few days.
"We will go from 34,000 people having received at least a first injection to 46,000", welcomes its president and mayor of Nice, Christian Estrosi.