Emmanuel Macron has defended his decision not to impose a third lockdown in France earlier this year, despite the country now facing a surge of Covid infections.
The French president added that is was vital that children were kept in schools and businesses stayed solvent as the pandemic moved into its second year.
Mr Macron’s comments come as the country’s intensive care units are at or beyond capacity in Paris and several other regions because of a resurgence of critically ill virus patients, and more than 1,000 people with Covid-19 are dying every week in the country.
Late on Thursday night at the end of an EU summit, he said: “We were right not to implement a lockdown in France at the end of January because we didn’t have the explosion of cases that every model predicted.
“There won’t be a mea culpa from me. I don’t have remorse and won’t acknowledge failure.”
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For months France has championed a “third way” between confinement and freedom, including a nationwide curfew and closing restaurants, museums, cinemas, gyms, many shopping malls and some other businesses.
Many medical workers have been urging the French government to impose stronger restrictions because of the more contagious Covid variant first identified in Britain and now dominant in France.
Mr Macron added: “A zero-virus situation doesn’t exist, and that’s true for every country in Europe.
“We’re not an island and even the islands who’d protected themselves sometimes saw the virus come back.
“But we considered that with the curfew and the measures we had, we could cope.”
France has recorded the fourth-highest number of virus infections in the world, and among the highest death tolls, with 93,378 people dead.
Additional reporting by AP
