French President Emmanuel Macron announced tougher national coronavirus restrictions Wednesday, saying the country must take a “new direction” in its approach to fighting Covid-19 or risk “losing control” over the virus.
The measures will start Saturday and last for at least a month, Macron said in a televised national address.
Macron said during the address, new measures were needed after his strategy of relying on targeted restrictions failed to tame the pandemic.
France’s sluggish vaccine campaign has left the country vulnerable to more contagious coronavirus variants, which have sent cases soaring and filled the country’s intensive-care units with Covid-19 patients.
“It would be false to say that things will get better on their own,” Mr. Macron said. “Then we would place ourselves in a sensitive situation where the entire country could be overloaded.”
He also said that some cultural venues and cafe terraces would reopen in mid-May, despite announcing new restrictions to battle Covid-19.
“Thanks to the vaccine, the way out of the crisis is emerging,” he said in an address to the nation, adding that from mid-May some cultural venues and cafe terraces would reopen “under strict rules”.
A calendar is to be drawn up for a full reopening of sports, leisure, hospitality and cultural facilities soon, he added.
His announcement means that movement restrictions already in place for more than a week in Paris, and some northern and southern regions, will now apply to the whole country for at least a month, from Saturday.
Departing from his pledge to safeguard education from the pandemic, Macron said schools will close for three weeks after this weekend.
He had sought to avoid a third large-scale lockdown since the start of the year, betting that if he could steer France out of the pandemic without locking the country down again he would give the economy a chance to recover from last year’s slump.
Restrictions were announced after the number of coronavirus patients in intensive care in France surpassed 5,000 on Tuesday.
It is the highest number this year and more than when France went into its second lockdown in November.
