It was at noon on 17 March 2020 that France entered its first national lockdown to counter the influx of patients infected with the new coronavirus to the country’s hospitals.
It was already clear from previous days’ announcements that the pandemic declared by the World Health Organization on 11 March 2020 was not going to leave daily life in France undisrupted.
After assuring for several weeks there was no cause for major disruption even as lockdowns affected China and neighbouring Italy, President Emmanuel Macron announced on 12 March that schools would close for an indefinite period.
Over the weekend that followed, the French government ordered all restaurants and bars to shut, and Macron was back on the television on Monday 16 March to declare “war” on the coronavirus and announce a full lockdown, with public outings limited to essential services.
Supermarkets in many parts of the country showed evidence of limited panic buying of select items including flour, pasta, rice, bottled water and toilet paper. The government passed emergency laws allowing limits on movement and gatherings.
Work from home and home schooling became the rule under tough restrictions. For those out of work due to the lockdown, the government announced vast economic relief including a furloughing scheme to keep as many people in employment as possible.
The disease itself swept through care homes for the elderly and pushed intensive care occupancy to a peak of over 7,000 patients in early April, a level not seen since.
By the time the first lockdown ended on 11 May, 26,643 patients infected with Covid-19 had succumbed to the disease or to complications it caused, which at the time was the world’s fifth highest official death toll.
First lockdown ends
Initially announced for two weeks, the lockdown ended up being extended to last nearly two months. With epidemiological curves having peaked and declined, but contrary to the warnings of the country’s preparedness, France began easing lockdown measures on 11 May.
Much activity of France’s battered economy resumed as shops and businesses reopened and restrictions on leaving home were lifted, and the government announced recovery plans for the automotive, aerospace and tourism industries.
Restaurants, bars and cultural sites including cinemas, theatres and museums reopened over the following weeks. After numerous delays and mixed messages, all schools reopened for two weeks in late June, making France one of the only countries to reopen schools before September.
The country equipped itself with expanded means for prevention including widespread availability of masks, whose usefulness the government had downplayed when stocks were short, as well as extended testing capacities.
Restrictions on international travel made summer holidaymakers opting to go to France’s beaches. But these came with warnings that domestic restrictions were too lax and would facilitate a second epidemic wave.
Second wave and lockdown
Expanded testing capacity meant more cases were being detected, but through the second half of summer and into autumn, it was clear infection rates were climbing as well, meaning the virus was spreading once again.
The government tested different means of measuring the impact of the virus around the country and experimented with various restrictions, notably with bar and restaurant closures that provoked anger from owners recovering from the first lockdown.
Before a nationwide curfew could take effect, hospital admissions sharply rose and Macron announced a second lockdown in the last days of October.
The restrictions of the new lockdown were less severe, with schools and many businesses remaining open. People were still required to leave their homes with a derogation certificate, but with an expanded list of reasons. Many small businesses complained that the measures favoured large retailers.
With the second wave peaking sooner and less severe than anticipated, the government detailed a more gradual end to the second lockdown and Macron defined a set of targets for case numbers and ICU occupancy.
France replaced lockdown with an 8pm curfew on 15 December, with ICU numbers within the target but case numbers still higher than hoped. On that date, France’s official death toll stood at 59,072.
Prolonged restrictions
The year ended with two developments: the launch of a vaccination campaign on the one hand, and the spread of more contagious variants of the coronavirus on the other.
With case numbers still high in January, the government declined to proceed with the reopening of restaurants, bars and cultural sites, all of which have now been closed since at least late October.
The nationwide curfew was brought forward from 8pm to 6pm in mid-January. At the end of the month, rather than imposing a third lockdown, the government opted to impose tougher rules on shopping malls and border crossings.
Some cities, including Nice in the south and Dunkirk to the north, have imposed weekend lockdowns, but despite the strain on hospitals in many parts of the country, including the Paris region, there is no third national lockdown for now.
This may not be the case for much longer. France’s vaccine campaign has suffered from the beginning, initially due to a slow rollout and then due to an apparent lack of coordination that had left hundreds of thousands of doses unused.
Occasionally there have been jumps in progress though, and despite the current setback with the suspension of the AstraZeneca vaccine, France seems determined to be banking on its vaccine campaign preventing the need for a third lockdown.
