Paris, Nice, and more than a dozen other French areas will move to a full lockdown for a month amid rising COVID-19 infections and hospital saturation in several regions, Prime Minister Jean Castex said on Thursday. Sixteen areas in the country known as "départements" will move to lockdown from Friday amid the third wave of infections including the entirety of the region including Paris, île-de-France, and region in the north of the country. Travel from those areas will be banned. In areas under lockdown, schools will remain open but high schools will be limited to half capacity as part of the measures. Non-essential shops will have to close while bookstores will be allowed to stay open in regions that are under lockdown. During the lockdown, people will be able to walk around and play sports without any time limits but will have to have a justification form and remain within 10 kilometers of their homes. Nationally, France will move their curfew from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. from Saturday when clocks change to summertime. Castex emphasized that people should be working from home four days out of five. The French PM said the situation had worsened considerably in the country, with the UK variant now representing nearly 75 percent of cases. Younger and healthier people are being admitted to intensive care, where they are being hospitalized longer, officials said. Castex said the virus acceleration looked like a "third wave" as the country approaches nearly 100,000 deaths due to COVID-19. The new restrictions come a day after French President Emmanuel Macron traveled to a hospital in Poissy, in the suburbs of Paris, to speak with health workers. One health worker told the president that the situation was worrying with younger people being admitted to the hospital. Macron said on Wednesday that the crisis was going to "hit very hard until mid-April," according to multiple French media. Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo said in an interview with TV5Monde on Thursday that she felt that the two scenarios proposed by the government would be "difficult" for people. Hidalgo said many people live in small apartments and will need to be able to walk outside in the region too. "We cannot either reduce people to just work and go home," she said, stating that a weekend lockdown seemed "inhuman" but that she would stand with the government whatever they decide. — Euronews
