A symbolic change comes into effect this Saturday.
The southern African countries, with which flights to France had been suspended for a few days at the end of November for fear of the arrival of the Omicron variant, are on the orange list, according to a decree published in the Official Journal.
By January 6, several of them (including South Africa) had already moved from scarlet to red.
In detail, South Africa, Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Malawi, Moldova, Mozambique, Namibia, Russia, Ukraine, Zambia and Zimbabwe are affected by this transition from red to orange.
Decline of the epidemic in southern Africa
This will have no consequences for vaccinated travellers, who remain free to come to France provided they have a negative PCR or antigen test carried out less than 48 hours before departure.
The non-vaccinated will no longer have to quarantine for 10 days and under the control of the police upon their arrival in France.
They will only be required to self-isolate for 7 days.
And they will no longer have the general obligation to carry out a new test once they set foot on French soil.
This sampling will be random, as for the vaccinated.
Read alsoVariant Omicron: how to help southern Africa without discriminating against it?
This change can be explained by the rapid decline of the epidemic in these different African countries.
In South Africa, the number of cases has risen, in one month, from more than 23,000 to 3,500. The situation seems less consistent for Russia, since the counter has been rising sharply for ten days (like all over Europe).
Note that two other countries, Argentina and Australia, also again in full epidemic growth, go from green to orange.
