Spanish authorities announced on Saturday that a negative PCR test of less than 72 hours would now be required for anyone wishing to cross the French land border to travel to Spain.
The measure, which will take effect on Tuesday, comes as Spain steps up restrictions in hopes of avoiding an increase in cases of Covid-19 contamination during Holy Week, which begins this weekend.
It is the first time that such a requirement has been imposed on those crossing the land border between the two countries.
Until now, this had only been required for arrivals by air.
"They must have a PCR test (RT-PCR), TMA test, or other type of diagnostic test for SARS-CoV-2 based on equivalent molecular techniques, with a negative result, performed within 72 hours of the test." arrival ”, indicates the Official Journal of the Spanish government published on Saturday.
Cross-border exempt
Only people working in road transport and cross-border workers will be exempt, as well as people who live in the border area as long as they stay within a radius of 30 kilometers around their home.
READ ALSO>
Covid: Follow the latest developments live
Until mid-March, the number of infections was steadily declining in Spain but it started to climb again, with government figures showing 7,586 new cases in 24 hours on Friday, bringing the total number of cases to nearly 3.3 million and deaths over 75,000.
In France, daily cases have almost doubled since the start of the month.
The bar of 200,000 new weekly cases has been crossed and more than 94,000 people have died since the start of the epidemic.
Morning essentials newsletter
A tour of the news to start the day
Subscribe to the newsletterAll newsletters
Favorite destination in the middle of Covid with its bars open and its curfew at 11:00 p.m., Madrid has become a refuge for European tourists, especially French, while its inhabitants are prohibited from leaving the region.
This difference in treatment exasperates the Spaniards, even more with the approach of Holy Week, an extremely popular holiday in the country and when people are used to traveling to meet up with their families.
Germany on Friday classified the whole of France, including the overseas territories, as an area at "high risk" of infection with Covid-19, which implies in particular at least random border controls, which most of travelers from France observe a quarantine period on arrival and have a negative test of less than 48 hours.
