The pandemic situation in France is in freefall, with a record number of cases reported in the country in recent days. In addition, the chairman of the scientific council believes that the actual number of illnesses could be twice the official number. The French government failed in managing the pandemic during the first wave of the outbreak and it does not seem to be on top of the situation this time either. We have compiled a roundup on France’s way from donating and destroying masks early this year to breaking negative records.
The French government has not learnt from its own mistakes. The errors made during the first wave of the coronavirus panemic claimed numerous lives and with the recent onset of the second wave, control seems to have slipped out of the hands of decisionmakers yet again.
According to the French public health service Sante Publique France (SPF), more people fell ill on Sunday than ever before, with more than 52,000 new infections reported. However, Jean-Francois Delfraissy, the chairman of the scientific council operating alongside the government, estimates that the actual number of people infected per day could be almost double than that; it may reach 100 thousand patients including the estimated but undiagnosed cases.
In France, the number of infected people has recently skyrocketed, with more than a million (1,198,695) coronavirus infections known to the authorities since the outbreak of the pandemic. The chairman of the scientific council said in a statement to RTL that the current situation was beginning to resemble the one seen in early March. The expert believes that the second wave will be much more extensive than the first, but many people have not yet realised what they are in for.
In our roundup, V4NA have gathered the key dates and events showing how the French government’s pandemic response measures have been unable to cope with the situation, and pushed the health care system on the brink of collapse.
The first official death due to coronavirus outside Asia occured in France: an 80-year-old Chinese tourist died at Bichat Hospital in Paris on 15 February. The first restrictions came into force on 29 February, when the number of coronavirus patients exceeded 100: events with an expected turnout of more than 5,000 people were banned.
By early March, there was a shortage of protective equipment all over the country, so to protect healthcare workers and coronavirus patients, the French government decided to seize all FFP2 disposable protective masks in stock and being produced in the country until 31 May. Before the epidemic, millions of masks were destroyed by the government. Genevieve Chene, director of the French Public Health Service (SPF), said some of the 616 million masks acquired between 2005 and 2006 were destroyed between 2017 and 2019, after the election of Emmanuel Macron. Former SPF director Francois Bourdillon also revealed that the French state did not consider it important to replenish the stocks of surgical masks because they did not expect the population to need them later. Moreover, on 19 February, before the outbreak, France generously delivered 17 tons of masks and other health protective equipment to China. Then Health Minister Agnes Buzyn said in late January that the country was doing so well they deemed the donation to be well within the country’s capacities.
On 14 March, Prime Minister Edouard Philippe announced the closure of all public venues. Theatres, cinemas, restaurants and bars were closed, but in an incomprehensible and highly irresponsible way, the first round of local elections was held across the country on Sunday, 15 March.
The nationwide lockdown came into effect on 17 March. People could only leave their homes in possession of an official form, and 100,000 police officers and gendarmes were mobilised nationwide to enforce the rules. The second round of municipal elections, which would have originally been held on 22 March, was postponed to a later date and was finally held on 28 June, but turnout was extremely low.
By the end of March, the situation was so critical in some areas that ventilated coronavirus patients had to be transferred from Strasbourg in the Alsace region to hospitals in the Loire region by a modified TGV train.
On 7 April, the death toll from coronavirus exceeded 10 thousand. The negative effects of the crisis were being felt in the economy by then, with GDP falling by more than 5 per cent in the first quarter of 2020.
On 11 May, the lockdown was lifted across the country, with some restrictions remaining in place, for example, a ban on gatherings with more than ten people stayed in effect. On 14 June, France was designated a green zone, visits to elderly care homes were allowed, and many people went on holiday. On 22 June, cinemas and holiday resorts re-opened, and students could return to school.
Despite the ban on large gatherings, French radical leftist organisations staged several demonstrations over the summer without permission from authorities. One such organisation was the Adama Committee headed by Assa Traore, sister of Adama Traore, who died in 2016 and is referred to as the French George Floyd. The event the committee held on 2 June ended in rioting, with protesters throwing things at a court building and clashing with police. In the end, police dispersed the crowd with tear gas.
Flouting the ban imposed by authorities, the Adama Committee organised another two illegal protests without complying with coronavirus safety regulations.
Despite the ban on large events, authorities proved to be powerless against young people wanting to party. In August, for instance, more than 10,000 people gathered for an illegal rave party in the territory of a national park near Hures-la-Parade on the Causse Mejean plateau.
Wild partying, becoming all the more frequent, and travelling to places led to a renewed rise in infections, as announced by the French Directorate General for Health (Direction Generale de la Sante) on 20 August. From 1 September, the government made mask-wearing mandatory for those working in enclosed spaces, as well as for school employees and students over the age of 12.
On 23 September, Health Minister Olivier Veran announced that the Aix-Marseille region and the overseas department of Guadeloupe were designated as maximum alert level zones, and ten days later, on 4 October, the capital was also put on maximum alert. There was no stopping from here, with the cities of Lille, Lyon, Grenoble, and Saint-Etienne with its surrounding area going on maximum alert level on 10 October. Toulouse and Montpellier followed suit on 13 October. However, people failed to take restrictions seriously. Consequently, on 17 October, the government tightened regulations and introduced a night curfew from 9 pm to 6 am in Lyon, Lille, Toulouse, Montpellier, Saint-Etienne, Aix-Marseille, Rouen, and Grenoble as well as in surrounding areas. Since curbing the spread of the virus seemed to be failing, the prime minister extended the curfew to another 38 departments and French Polynesia from 22 October.
However, authorities appear to have been late with toughening regulations as the number of people infected in France exceeded one million on Friday, 23 October and the country has seen negative records in new cases ever since. According to figures released on 27 October, the virus claimed 523 lives in a single day, bringing the death toll to more than 35,500. Currently, 2,909 coronavirus patients are in intensive care units in France. On 26 October, 357 new patients were admitted to intensive care units in a day, this is the highest number reported since the height of the first wave of the disease in April.