Maria Laura Avignolo
10/18/2020 3:59 PM
Clarín.com
World
Updated 10/18/2020 3:59 PM
A long night of curfew for Paris and 8 other French cities to face the second wave of Covid, in exponential growth.
With 32,700 cases of coronavirus declared in a single day,
the 20 million French people involved in the measure
resigned themselves to being locked up from nine at night to six in the morning, until next December 1, since yesterday.
Not all: three savage demonstrations, in full swing, in the Place de la République, in Chatelet and in Gard de L´Est moderately tried to demonstrate that some do not agree with the measures.
"Libertad, Libertad"
, they sang, until being dissolved by the police 45 minutes later, as it was an unauthorized march.
Preparations began at half past six in the afternoon.
A radical change of life for Parisians,
who arrived at the restaurants early
, to be able to return home at the hour of the ring.
It was not a good deal for the already impoverished restaurants.
They only covered half of their cutlery because the French have not resigned themselves to eating an American schedule.
The same happened with the theater and cinemas, which advanced their schedules.
The Champs Elysees, on the first night of curfew.
AP Photo
In the 18th district, in the heart of Montmartre,
people ate on the terraces
, despite the cold.
Inside restaurants, the virus circulates more intensely, according to infectologists.
The mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo authorized the terraces but banned gas stoves from them, in the name of ecology.
To the restaurant, but a "refrigerator model" for many.
Ten minutes before the curfew began,
the waiters rushed to deliver the bill
and began stacking the already empty tables and chairs.
People had chosen local restaurants close to their homes.
Others were cycling away.
Lonely and abandoned, the Montmartre funicular continued to run until one-thirty in the morning, without passengers.
The deserted Magenta Boulevard and its illuminated wedding dress boutiques had a ghostly look.
The streets of Paris looked like the scene of a horror movie.
The Champs Elysees were the image of desolation.
The orphan Arc de Triomphe, without tourists or cars circulating on a carousel, in one of the most dangerous crossings in the world.
The opening of the bars had already been prohibited
and the few open restaurants closed on time.
Silence and darkness
The Bastille, one of the centers of the Parisian "scene", looked like a black hole.
Between bankrupt merchants and restaurant curtains,
the area was eerily dark.
“People consume differently.
He does not choose the menu.
He asks us to make suggestions based on what takes the shortest time to cook, ”said the Maitre d of a brasserie in the Bastille.
"Everyone looks at the clock to run home," he explained.
In the Fauborg St Antoine apartments, some decided to follow the meeting "touch by touch", given the impossibility of going out, or carry out the "Pajama Party".
Without a reason such as health, caring for a sick person, professional issues, going to the pharmacy or walking your pet, there were no authorized reasons to go out, on pain of
paying a fine of 135 euros.
Paris, alone.
AP Photo
Darkness, not a soul in the street
, save the police cars with their blue lights turning.
Even the Metros were deserted.
In St Ouen, on the edge of the Peripheral, where drug “dealers” meet their clients, the desert. Drugs in Paris are distributed at home from confinement.
In the streets of the capital there were only the cyclists of the "delivery" distributing their last orders, some taxi drivers, the night buses and the restaurant staff running to the bus to return home.
They can do it.
At least 12,000 police officers
were deployed to enforce the rules.
The official instruction was to “test pedagogy and common sense”, “evaluate the good or bad faith” of those who violated the toque and did not have the authorization to do so.
On St Germain Boulevard, a husband forgot his curfew and went down to buy ice cream at McDonald's for his wife.
The police were understanding.
The authorization is printed on the Internet from government sites or downloaded on the cell phone and has duration times.
Those who must go to the hospital, take a plane or train at that time are exempt.
The transport schedules have not been altered.
Second wave
The government defends its curfew.
For them and their epidemiologists it will be the only instrument to avoid a second lockdown, when the indices are degraded.
The peak of this second wave of the virus is expected after October 23 and the British vaccine would only arrive by Christmas.
Paris hospitals are on the brink of overflow, with exhausted doctors and nurses and
without enough beds
to care for those with Covid or other illnesses.
When the virus grows exponentially throughout Europe and the French are in full Toussaint holidays, with their children without classes, the touch is fulfilled in Lille, Toulousse, Grenoble, Marseille, Aix en Provence, Lyon, Montpellier, Saint Etienne, Rouen and Grenoble, with few incidents.
For the French,
the curfew has an air to the one imposed by the Nazis
during the occupation of Paris. ”With these numbers of infected, this has come to last.
My fear is that we will have a confined Christmas ", recognizes Denise, who was 10 years old in the Second World War and was rushing to finish her dinner at the Bistrot de Peintre.
Restaurants seek to adapt, they place the notebook on the door so that customers write their name, their cell phone and their email in case of contagion to be contacted.
And they pray that a second confinement does not take place.
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