French PM to present end of lockdown roadmap today
The French prime minister will this afternoon present a ‘roadmap’ for the end of the strict lockdown period, expected to start from Monday next week.
The speech at 16:00 on TF1 and LCI is expected to shape the nature of the first stage of the deconfinement period, building on the information he presented nine days ago.
In that previous speech he urged people to be disciplined in the run-up to May 11, so as to ensure there was not a resurgence of Covid-19 and that deconfinement could begin on schedule.
If all went as hoped, he said a first deconfinement stage could then begin, lasting until June 2, when it was expected that there would be further changes.
Rules for the first stage will to some extent vary depending on whether people live in a geographical department that has been labelled green (good), orange (intermediate) or red (bad), for the number of new cases, the capacity of hospitals to cope, and whether or not the area is well equipped for testing and contact tracing (alerting people who may be at risk due to having had close contact with an infected person).
Departments have been assessed daily now for a week, but a final assessment into red and green categories will be made today. Even so, most of the rules will be national and will be the same everywhere, it is expected.
Among issues to be clarified today will be a restriction on travel over 100km and the reopening of primary schools.
There is also likely to be confirmation of rules on issues such as the wearing of masks on public transport and / or at work.
Mr Philippe will today be accompanied by several other ministers including Elisabeth Borne (Ecology), Olivier Véran (Health), Christophe Castaner (Interior), Bruno Le Maire (Economy), Muriel Pénicaud (Work) et Jean-Michel Blanquer (Education).
