| schema:articleBody
| - The French capital Paris braced for new restrictions Thursday after a surge in Covid-19 infections pushed hospitals to breaking point and forced the government to consider much-resisted new lockdown measures. Unlike neighbours like Britain and Germany, President Emmanuel Macron has resisted imposing a nationwide lockdown this year in the face of what officials acknowledge is the third wave of the pandemic in France that has already killed over 91,000. But with emergency wards in hospitals in Paris overwhelmed, Parisians have spent the last days in an anxiety-inducing guessing game over what new measures could be imposed. Prime Minister Jean Castex is to speak at 1800 GMT to announce the new measures, which reportedly could include a stay-at-home order every weekend over the next month for the 12 million people in the Paris region. Macron has argued against a third national shutdown, preferring instead to enforce local restrictions with a varied picture across the country. But confining people to their homes in Paris -- the economic and political hub of a highly centralised country and renowned for its dense housing -- has sparked worries of more psychological problems and even violence. While Castex said in an interview this week that measures, including a weekend lockdown, were on the table for Paris, a leaked recording of Macron addressing local officials Wednesday indicated the president was worried about such a measure. "Life in this region (Paris) is a bit different and a weekend lockdown is a difficult measure to take," said Macron in the recording broadcast on France Bleu radio Thursday. "People come home late from work... and you can't lock them down from Friday to Sunday evening, it is a life that is impossible," he added, saying the measures needed to be adapted for the region. The other two Covid-19 hotspots in France -- around the southern Mediterranean town of Nice, and the northern region surrounding Calais -- have been under weekend lockdowns since late February and early March respectively. The handling of the health crisis also has consequences for Macron, just over 12 months from presidential elections and with opponents slamming his record. Macron argued that the situation was stable in France, which was already under a 6:00 pm curfew and with strict mask-wearing rules in place, and that a lockdown would wreak unnecessary economic and social damage. Daily infections stayed constant at around 20,000 a day for February, but have risen sharply in recent weeks. Around 38,000 new infections were reported Wednesday, the highest level in four months, and saturated Paris hospitals are transferring patients to other regions. "When you hit the emergency brake, with a weekend lockdown for example, it's because you've failed with all the rest," Bruno Retailleau, a senior figure in the right-wing opposition Republicans party, told France Inter radio, referring to Macron's strategy. As well as registering soaring cases, France has made a sluggish start to its vaccination campaign. It suspended use of the AstraZeneca/Oxford jab this week in line with many European countries after reports of blood clots. But Macron is eager to resume the AstraZeneca vaccination if the European Medicines Agency (EMA) rules it is safe. The agency was due to speak Thursday afternoon after holding an emergency meeting, and Castex's news conference was scheduled for the evening so he can immediately respond to the EMA's verdict. Almost exactly a year ago, Macron ordered France's first national lockdown which was among the strictest in the world, followed by a second at the end of October. In its annual report published Thursday, France's Court of Audit said the state had not been well prepared in a range of areas from schools, to hospitals to trains. adp-sjw/jv
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)
![[cxml]](/fct/images/cxml_doc.png)
![[csv]](/fct/images/csv_doc.png)
![[text]](/fct/images/ntriples_doc.png)
![[turtle]](/fct/images/n3turtle_doc.png)
![[ld+json]](/fct/images/jsonld_doc.png)
![[rdf+json]](/fct/images/json_doc.png)
![[rdf+xml]](/fct/images/xml_doc.png)
![[atom+xml]](/fct/images/atom_doc.png)
![[html]](/fct/images/html_doc.png)