“Oh my, I thought it was 8pm! I was also thinking that there weren’t many people outside… ”Savah is stunned, and immediately gestures to two little figures in pink puffer jackets, which are brightened up under illuminated Christmas baubles. It is after 6 pm, the little family leaves the square of the cathedral of Reims. The curfew has just fallen on the Marne.
Fifteen departments, mainly in the north-eastern quarter of France, passed this additional restriction this Saturday, a compromise between the status quo and strict re-containment – demanded by several elected officials from the East, including the mayor of the Champagne capital. “We significantly reduce visits to relatives and last minute shopping. But the principle is not to prevent people from working, and there is tolerance for picking up children from extracurricular or nursery school ”, indicates the prefect, Pierre N’Gahane.
Aurélien, a quadra executive, who pushes his trolley in the Carrefour de Tinqueux car park, on the outskirts of the city, sums it up differently: “You get up, you work, you come back. »We will have to give up the« little pleasure of the Friday aperitif », with the good dishes of the Italian caterer. Gone too, the bouquet of flowers, bought from time to time after work, and the McDonald’s picked up at the drive for the three children.
“It won’t change anything”
“A curfew at 8 pm did not change our daily life much, but 6 pm is a bit of a hammer,” admits Aurélien. He will comply, however, he who rubbed shoulders with the Covid at the end of October, and knows “how virulent it can be, and how it spreads even when we are careful”.
This young caregiver, who comes from the Robert Debré CHU, staggering with fatigue after 36 hours on call, will not contradict him. Resuscitation is just in time: “When a bed is empty, it is filled within an hour. “Romain, a caregiver from another service, is preparing” to return to the Covid unit next week “. According to the bulletin of the regional health agency, published Wednesday (December 30), the number of new cases detected per 100,000 inhabitants amounted to 198.9 in the city of coronations. An incidence rate well above the national average (122.9).
Like many other onlookers, interviewed this Saturday on the Place d’Erlon, the commercial heart of Reims, Aurélie doubts the effectiveness of a curfew at 6 p.m. to reduce the evil. “It won’t change anything,” predicts this nursing assistant in nursing home, who is waiting in front of the pharmacy for the result of her antigen test. “Many of my colleagues are infected, much more than during the first wave. It abounds! “
Shops open earlier
Behind her, the first iron curtains fall. It is 5.30 p.m. At the Iris in Florence, where we have supplied ourselves with beautiful crockery and pretty frames since 1882, the boss Olivier Traeger is sorry to see six people strolling in the shop while the hour of closing looms. “People who received a gift certificate at Christmas will have to hurry…” he regrets. I decided to open an hour earlier in the morning, but at 9 am there isn’t a cat. “
Stéphane, a salesperson in an optical store, wants to believe that customers will adapt, just as he is about to change his hours, to “catch up” between noon and 2 pm for the hours not worked at the end of the day. “Anyway, in town there has been no one for months and months,” he said. We did not have a Christmas market, we no longer have tourists … As long as the bars and restaurants are closed, people will not come back to town. “
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