The weeks go by and look the same for the government.
This Thursday, December 10 at 6 p.m., Prime Minister Jean Castex and Minister of Health, Olivier Véran, will speak again to announce whether or not the containment measures will be lifted on December 15.
Yet another press conference - the last from the head of government dates back to December 3 only - on the health crisis linked to the Covid-19 epidemic.
A topic, certainly, hot, but which occupies almost all the bandwidth of the executive for months, at the risk of installing a very strong feeling of weariness even in the ranks of the government.
“We can't take it anymore.
It will be almost a year, we only do health, economy and security, we can not do anything else, ”sighs a minister.
And this, even though the context in the country remains potentially explosive: “Every detail can turn into a media mess.
We are under constant pressure, ”continues the same, a bit depressed.
Lively debates on Christmas and the New Year
While Emmanuel Macron had hinted at a glimmer of hope on November 24, with the key to containment relief measures from December 15, the tone has seriously changed at the top of the state in recent days.
And we must again prepare the French, whose nerves have already been strained for several months, for bad news and this a few weeks before Christmas Eve.
The objective of returning to 5,000 new contaminations per day - a preliminary drawn up by the Head of State to loosen the screw - will obviously not be reached by next Tuesday.
“The latest figures even show a quivering rise in contamination.
So we are ready to go backwards compared to what had been announced ”, underlines a ministerial adviser.
A Defense Council met this Wednesday morning to examine all the leads on the table.
And the debates were particularly lively around the question of Christmas and New Year's Day.
The day before, the Minister of Health Olivier Véran had declared on LCI that "Christmas is not the New Year", thus suggesting that December 24 could escape the very restrictive measures, unlike the more festive New Year's Eve of December 31.
"Some ministers did not see why we differentiated the two", relates a participant.
A face to face for the last arbitrations
Also on the hot seat, the reopening of theaters, cinemas, theaters and other museums.
This Wednesday morning, the spokesperson for LREM, Aurore Bergé, mentioned on BFM an extension of the closure of places of culture.
As for the curfew, it will make a big comeback on December 15, not at 9 p.m., as was the case previously, but probably at 8 p.m.
The question of authorizations to travel from one region to another remains unanswered ...
Because the last arbitrations were not made in the Defense Council.
Wednesday afternoon, a meeting at the Interministerial Crisis Center refined the system.
Before a videoconference bringing together all the ministers on Wednesday evening.
But Jean Castex cut this virtual meeting short to 9 p.m. because he had an appointment with Emmanuel Macron.
The two men had to talk to each other to find the final arbitrations.
The executive knows it, it evolves on a tightrope.
How to maintain the support of the French without giving them a little hope?
The equation is difficult.
But some, like those close to the President of the Republic, want to remain optimistic: "At the moment, people do not want laxity, they want protection".