PM Jean Castex will speak in a few minutes but BFMTV is saying he will announce that home lockdown ends (as promised) on 15 Dec but high cases numbers mean that the replacement curfew will start at 8pm not 9pm (until 7 am).
What difference will an hour make? No idea. Perhaps there will be other restrictions...or no reopening of theattres, cinemas etc.
Castex starts by thanking French for their efforts and sacrifices. He says lower case figures have hit a plateau and even started to climb again. But same pattern seen elsewhere in Europe. Hands over to health minister Olivier Veran...
Veran says France's epidemic figures now better than most of its neighbours. But cases are climbing again ...14,000 today. He blames cold and humidity as well as relaxation of vigilance. Fr will NOT hit its 5,000 cases a day target.
France has however tonight met its other target of less than 3,000 patients in intensive care. But situation remains critical in east of country.
PM Castex again now....as a result of these stats, we must alter the promised measures for 15 December. We must do all we can to avoid a third wave ...
From 15 Dec, we go to a new stage but not exactly what was promised. Theatres, cinemas etc will remain closed for another 3 weeks. Increase in number of worshippers at religious services will not happen either.
As promise d lockdown will be lifted from 15 Dec but with a curfew starting at 8pm not 9pm.
Another change. The curfew will be suspended on Christmas Eve but NOT on New Year's Eve.
Travel anywhere within France WILL be allowed from 15 December.
From that date people can leave home when they wish (up to 8pm) and without having to fill in an attestation justifying their journey.i
To sum up...Home lockdown ends from 15 Dec but with a stricter curfew and nowhere much to go anyway. Theatres, cinemas, museums etc will remain closed until 6 January..
Castex concludes... We must remain careful. Virus has been checked but not defeated. He understands impatience but battle against Covid will be won by all of us. Finally...first months of next year will bring big improvements. Better tests, better tracing systems and vaccination.

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More from @john_lichfield

11 Dec
Non-fish people look away. Huge amounts of conflicting info is dished out on UK/EU fish catches in “UK waters”. It’s late in the game but I decided to look again at the “real” figures, as established by Dr Ian Napier for the Uni of the Highlands and Islands. 1/13
Dr Napier has crunched the figures not for EU national quota shares (which often overlap the UK/EU zones) but for actual catches, by nationality and precise maritime location. To read the whole of this painstaking July 2020 report go here. 2/13
nafc.uhi.ac.uk/t4-media/one-w…
The report is factual and draws no political conclusions. On the surface (as it were), Dr Napier’s findings justify the complaints of UKG and parts of the UK fishing industry that Britain has an unfairly low share of catches in the UK EEZ up to 200 miles. BUT…. 3/13
Read 13 tweets
10 Dec
PM Jean Castex will announce at 6pm whether the 2nd French Covid lockdown will be lifted as conditionally promised from next Tuesday (15 Dec). Daily cases are still drifting upwards. All the same, French media believe that the lockdown WILL be eased. 1/8
The daily ave. of cases in the last 7 days is 11,368, compared to 10,524 last week. President Macron’s end-of-lockdown target of 5,000 cases cannot be met in time. BUT Media betting is that Castex will replace home “confinement” with an earlier-than-planned curfew (from 8pm). 2/8
The re-opening of theatres, cinemas etc may be delayed. Holiday travel between regions? May be allowed… but uncertain. Decisions were made at a Health Defence Council yesterday but have not yet fully leaked. 3/8
Read 8 tweets
21 Nov
Time for another French Covid thread. Six days since the last. “Tentative good news” is now a clear, positive trend. New cases/acute cases are falling. The incidence rate has almost halved in 3 weeks. The death rate is high but falling slightly. 1/10
On Tuesday evening Emmanuel Macron will tell us what he makes of these figures. An end to the 2nd lockdown? Not yet, it seems. But more shops may be allowed to re-open and he may announce some kind of Xmas truce. 2/10
The best guess of experts is that the 2nd wave was slow to gather pace and will be slow to abate. Jean-François Delfraissy, presdt of Fr’s scientific council, says: “Vaccines won’t solve everything. Next year won’t be a normal year. But I see light at the end of the tunnel.”
Read 10 tweets
15 Nov
Here is my latest French Covid number crunching thread with some, tentative GOOD NEWS (Hooray!) The flow of C19 patients into hospital and intensive care has slowed substantially in the last week and numbers in IC actually fell yesterday for the first time since 21 Aug.
1/10
Other good news. The positive rate for tests has fallen in the last week from 20.3% to 17.3%. The daily average of new cases has fallen sharply - to 29,413 from 53,344 last week. BUT... (bad news coming) 2/10
The daily mortality rate (most lagging of indicators) has increased once again - to 582.4 from 488.5 last week. There have been nearly 4,000 deaths in 7 days, including 1,230 in care homes. These figures approach those of the darkest days of the 1st Wave in April…. BUT
3/10
Read 10 tweets
12 Nov
In 10 mins or so the French PM Jean Castex will say whether there will be any changes in the second half of France’s minimum one month-long Second Lockdown. Some schools to close? Some shops to open? The betting is on “no change”.
This will disappoint/anger owners of “non essential” shops who are desperate to reopen as soon as possible. There may be extra compo for them to soften the pain.
Is lockdown working? There are signs that the activity of the virus is slowing. The R or Reproduction rate – how many people 1 Covid carrier infects – has fallen below 1 (to 0.93) for the first time since early July. The rate of positive tests is also falling – now 19.5%.
Read 15 tweets
1 Nov
Here is an excellent riposte to some of the wilful or ignorant nonsense from people who should no better accusing Macron of being anti muslim or playing the anti muslim card. Op-ed by a dozen or French muslim leaders praising Macron's approach.
lemonde.fr/idees/article/…
Can't translate the whole thing but it points out that Macron's speech early last month on combating extremist islamist separatism was in no way an attack on Islam.
Here are two extracts translated into English (courtesy of Google Translate.) Will post the whole thing in English if someone can tell me how to link to large chunks of text on Twitter...
Read 15 tweets

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