Residents of a German town have been using a fishing rod to lift French baguettes over the border amid the coronavirus lockdown.
Germans in the western town of Lauterbach have been meeting a baker from a neighbouring French town at the border to get bread while there are international travel restrictions due to Covid-19.
Myriam Jansem-Boualit, a baker from Carlin in north-eastern France, takes orders by phone and meets Germans at the border crossing near her shop to deliver her baguettes.
“There used to be a lot of Germans who came here to buy bread,” she told Agence France-Presse. “They don’t dare come anymore because there are checks. So what I can do now is bring the bread to them.”
One of her German regulars, Hartmut Fey, has been using a fishing rod to reel in the bread.
“We’ve been buying our baguettes and bread here in France for decades,” he said. “It has to do with tradition.”
Germany is beginning to loosen its strict lockdown, with a number of non-essential shops reopening yesterday.
The country's rate of deaths from the virus as been gradually falling.
Yesterday German health authorities recorded 110 coronavirus deaths, bringing the total death toll to 4,404 – a quarter of France’s total.
