PARIS – French Prime Minister Jean Castex has held talks with parliamentary groups and regional officials who agreed that “supplementary measures” need to be taken to tackle the coronavirus pandemic, a government spokesman said yesterday.
There is “a consensus around the fragility of the epidemic situation, and a second consensus which follows directly from the first... the need to take additional measures to curb the circulation of the virus in the coming days”, government spokesman Gabriel Attal said.
The possibility of a third lockdown since the pandemic began has been mooted in recent days.
Whatever the decision, President Emmanuel Macron is expected to make an announcement over the weekend or on Monday, with the new measures expected to be in place within days of that announcement.
“It feels like a lockdown is on the way,” said Patrick Kanner, leader of the opposition Socialists in the upper-house Senate.
One key issue will concern schools, which are currently open.
Attal said the government foresees a total of 2.5 million people will have received at least one virus vaccine jab by the end of February.
That figure falls well short of the four million by the end February which Health Minister Olivier Veran cited just a week ago.
Covid-19 has killed 74,800 people in France since the pandemic began. – AFP, January 29, 2021
