Dreams of a better future largely unfulfilled
A decision will be taken “in the coming days” on whether to impose a third lockdown on France, the government spokesman said after a meeting of ministers.
France’s Defence Council, the group of key ministers who decide on what health restrictions to impose, met on Wednesday morning to discuss whether a third lcokdown is necessary.
Speculation has been raging in France ever since the Journal du Dimanche — a newspaper often used by the government to introduce new policies or ideas — ran a front page saying that a third lockdown was imminent and Macron would be addressing the nation again this week.
Les unes du JDD (à Paris et partout ailleurs). Excellente lecture et bon dimanche.
The head of France’s advisory Scientific Council Jean-François Delfraissy also spoke on TV saying a third lockdown “will probably be necessary” and this is the key week for making decisions.
However, speaking after the meeting on Wednesday, government spokesman Gabriel Attal said a decision would not be taken immediately.
He said that president Emmanuel Macron had asked ministers to study several different scenarios, but added that the president wanted to see data from two full weeks of the 6pm curfew to fully asses what impact it was having.
Attal said that the earlier curfew seemed to be “slowing the circulation of the virus, but not enough to be considered fully effective”.
The 6pm-6am curfew was introduced across mainland France on Saturday, January 16th, although some areas in eastern France has imposed the measure earlier.
Analysing two weeks of curfew data would therefore push a decision on lockdown past Saturday.
Attal said that the president wanted to see full scientific and economic impact studies on various different options, which range from “maintaining the current framework, which is unlikely, to very strict lockdown”.
There will also be consultation with parliament and unions in the days to come.
READ ALSO: Third lockdown? What to expect in France this week
Curfew and new variants
So far, the national case numbers are continuing with the slow but steady rise that has been in evidence since December with no immediately apparent effect from the 6pm curfew
In several of the areas of eastern France that had the 6pm curfew imposed earlier, case numbers initially fell and then rose again. The département of Alpes-Maritime, which contains the city of Nice, now has the highest incidence rate in the country despite being under a 6pm curfew since January 2nd.
The other thing the Council was looking at is the progress of the new variant of the Covid virus first discovered in the UK.
Scientific modelling predicts that this more contagious variant will be dominant in France by March and data from hospitals in the greater Paris Île-de-France region from the last two weeks shows that 10 percent of confirmed Covid cases are the variant anglais.
Health experts fear an explosion of cases and deaths as seen in the UK, which yesterday became the first European country to record a 100,000 death toll.
Infections and hospital occupancy
The Council was also looking as usual at case numbers and the situation in hospitals.
The weekly average rate of new cases now stands at 20,000 cases per day, up from 12,000 per day when lockdown was lifted on December 15th. When the second lockdown was imposed on October 30th, daily case numbers stood at 50,000.
IN NUMBERS: Is France heading for a third lockdown and if so, when?
Case numbers have seen a slow but consistent rise over the last six weeks, but France appears to have avoided a ‘spike’ in cases connected to travel and socialising over Christmas.
Of more concern is the situation in the country’s hospitals. On Monday, the number of Covid patients in intensive care topped 3,000 for the first time since December 10th.
Over the past two weeks the intensive care occupancy rates have jumped from 50 percent to 60 percent and hospitals in the east of the country, where case numbers are highest, are under severe pressure.
Mood
Macron must also consider the public mood in France, where discontent over the idea of a third lockdown has grown in recent days.
So far France has managed to avoid the mass demonstrations against lockdown seen in the USA, UK and Germany or the anti-curfew riots seen this week in the Netherlands, however this week the hashtags #jeneconfineraipas (I will not be confined) and #jemereconfineraipas (I will not re-confine) have been circulating on social media along with increased anti-lockdown comments.
A poll for TV channel BFM showed that 52 percent of people would be against a strict lockdown like the one seen in March, but 52 percent of people would be in favour of a third lockdown along the lines of the October lockdown, which was less strict and saw schools remain open.
Parents will also be looking ahead to the February school holidays, which begin in some areas on February 6th, and wanting information on whether they can make travel plans or not.
The Cannes Film Festival has been rescheduled for July 6th to 17th — postponed by around two months due to the ongoing virus crisis, organisers said on Wednesday.
“As announced last autumn, the Festival de Cannes reserved the right to change its dates depending on how the global health situation developed,” they said in a statement.
“Initially scheduled from 11th to 22nd May 2021, the Festival will therefore now take place from Tuesday 6th to Saturday 17th July 2021.”
The festival was cancelled last year, while rival European events in Berlin and Venice went ahead under strict health restrictions.
The Berlin Film Festival, which usually kicks off in February, said last month it would run this year’s edition in two stages, an online offering for industry professionals in March and a public event in June.
France has closed all cinemas, theatres and show rooms alongside cafés, bars and restaurants as part of its Covid-19 health measures and the government has pushed back their reopening date until further notice due to rising levels of viral spread across the country.
The Cannes festival normally attracts some 45,000 people with official accreditations, of whom around 4,500 are journalists.
It had only been cancelled once before, due to the outbreak of war in 1939.
Its Film Market, held alongside the main competition, is the industry’s biggest marketplace for producers, distributors, buyers and programmers.
Last year, the festival still made an official selection of 56 films — including the latest offerings from Wes Anderson, Francois Ozon and Steve McQueen — allowing them to use the “Cannes official selection” label.
A shortage of COVID-19 vaccines has forced Paris and two other regions that together account for a third of the French population to postpone giving out first doses, a source familiar with the discussion, and health officials, said on Thursday.
Europe faces a vaccine shortfall because pharmaceutical firm Pfizer has temporarily slowed supplies in order to make manufacturing changes, while AstraZeneca said it would cut supplies of its shot allocated to the EU in the first quarter due to production issues at a Belgian factory.
Portugal said its vaccine roll-out would be slower than planned, and Germany said shortages would persist into April.
The public health agency for Paris and the surrounding region, an area of 12.1 million people, told regional hospitals on a conference call on Wednesday that from Feb. 2, all deliveries of first doses of the COVID-19 vaccine to medical establishments would be suspended, the source said.
The agency said injections of the second, follow-up dose would continue, according to the source. There was no indication during the call when first doses would resume.
The public health agency for the Hauts-de-France region in the north said earlier on Thursday that it was pushing back to the first week of March injection of the first doses that had been planned for early February. It too cited supply problems.
In the region around the wine-making Burgundy area, the public health agency said it was deferring appointments for first injections of COVID-19 vaccines in order to address supply shortages.
Residents of care homes — among the most at risk from serious illness in the epidemic — are unlikely to be affected by the delays because most have already received the first dose.
But the delays are likely to affect people over 75 and health care workers who are currently due to receive a first dose.
Most of the vaccines currently approved for use globally come in two doses: the first gives only limited protection from the virus, with the second needed to fully inoculate a patient.
The French health ministry said on Wednesday that as of Jan. 26 a total of 1.13 million first doses and 6,153 second doses had been administered.
The European Union on Friday abruptly reversed a plan to use emergency Brexit measures to restrict exports of Covid-19 vaccines from crossing the Irish border into the United Kingdom after it sent shockwaves through Northern Ireland, London and Dublin.
In a steep escalation of the EU’s fight to secure vaccine supplies, Brussels had said it would trigger clauses in the Northern Ireland Protocol to prevent the vaccines from moving across the open border between EU-member Ireland and the British-run province.
Following an outcry in London, Belfast and Dublin, the EU published a statement just before midnight saying it would ensure that the Northern Ireland Protocol, designed to keep the border open, would not be affected.
It warned, however, that should vaccines and active substances move toward third countries and out of the bloc, it would use “all the instruments at its disposal”.
Ireland said the EU’s change of heart was welcome but that lessons should be learned.
“The Protocol is not something to be tampered with lightly, it’s an essential, hard won compromise, protecting peace and trade for many,” Irish foreign affairs minister Simon Coveney said on Twitter.
The EU’s original plan was intended to prevent the open border between EU-member Ireland and Northern Ireland from acting as a backdoor for vaccine supplies into the United Kingdom.
The public reversal followed a round of frantic calls as British Prime Minister Boris Johnson told EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen of his “grave concerns” while Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin spoke to both Johnson and the EU chief to find a solution.
Northern Irish unionists cast the EU’s original plan as an act of hostility.
In a tweet late on Friday, von der Leyen said she had spoken to Johnson: “We agreed on the principle that there should not be restrictions on the export of vaccines by companies where they are fulfilling contractual responsibilities.”
The swiftest mass vaccination drive in history is stoking tensions across the world as big powers buy up doses in bulk and poorer nations try to navigate a financial and diplomatic minefield to collect whatever supplies are left.
The EU, whose member states are far behind Israel, Britain and the United States in rolling out vaccines, is scrambling to get supplies just as the West’s biggest drugmakers slow deliveries to the bloc because of production problems.
The British-Swedish drugmaker AstraZeneca has been caught in the crosshairs after it said last week it would fall short of delivering promised vaccines to the EU by March because of production problems in Belgium.
That angered Brussels which has demanded to know why the company cannot divert supplies from its British sites, which have been producing millions of shots for British citizens.
Britain has its own domestic supply chain in place for AstraZeneca, including rolling it out in Northern Ireland, but it imports Pfizer’s vaccine from a factory in Belgium.
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The European Commission agreed to a broader plan to control exports of vaccines from the bloc, including to Britain, arguing it needed to do so to ensure its own supplies.
But the EU’s abortive attempt to use the Northern Ireland Protocol triggered anger in the province.
Northern Ireland First Minister Arlene Foster described it as “an incredible act of hostility”.
Preserving the delicate peace in Northern Ireland without allowing the United Kingdom a back door into the EU’s markets through the UK-Irish 310-mile land border was one of the most difficult issues of the Brexit divorce talks.
When Egyptians first took to the streets on January 25, 2011, their numbers quickly swelled in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, state security forces backed off and, within less than three weeks, then-president Hosni Mubarak stepped down. But a decade later, thousands are estimated to have fled abroad to escape the government of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, which many consider to be even more oppressive.
The loss of academics, artists, journalists and other intellectuals has, along with a climate of fear, hobbled any political opposition.
Interim military rulers followed Mubarak. Then in 2012, Mohamed Morsi, a member of Egypt’s most powerful Islamist group, the Muslim Brotherhood, was elected as the first civilian president in the country’s history. But his tenure proved unpopular among many Egyptians opposed to Islamism.
Amid massive protests, the military — led by then defence minister Sisi — removed Morsi in 2013, dissolved parliament and eventually banned the Brotherhood as a “terrorist group.” A crackdown on dissent ensued, and Sisi won two terms in elections that human rights groups criticised as undemocratic.
Among those jailed in the early 2011 protests was Dr. Mohamed Aboelgheit, who was jailed for calling to revolt against police brutality and Mubarak in the southern city of Assiut. He spent part of the uprising in a cramped cell.
Released amid the chaos, he revelled in the atmosphere of political freedom in the Arab world’s most populous country — protesting, working as a journalist and joining a campaign for a moderate presidential candidate. But it did not last.
“I began to feel, by degree, more fear and threats,” Aboelgheit told AP. Friends were jailed and his writings critical of the government drew attention. “I wasn’t going to wait until it happened to me,” he added.
After Sisi came to power, Aboelgheit left for London, where he has published investigative reports on other parts of the Arab world.
At his former home in Egypt, national security agents asked about him. When Aboelgheit’s wife last returned to visit relatives, she was summoned for questioning about his activities.
‘A very difficult situation’
It is unknown exactly how many Egyptians like Aboelgheit have fled political persecution.
Data from the World Bank shows emigration from Egypt has increased since 2011. A total of 3,444,832 left in 2017 — nearly 60,000 more than in 2013, the years for which figures are available. But it is impossible to tell economic migrants from political exiles.
They relocated to Berlin, Paris and London. Egyptians also have settled in Turkey, Qatar, Sudan and even Asian countries like Malaysia and South Korea.
Human Rights Watch estimated in 2019 that there were 60,000 political prisoners in Egypt. The Committee to Protect Journalists ranks Egypt third, behind China and Turkey, in detaining journalists.
Sisi maintains Egypt has no political prisoners. The arrest of a journalist or a rights worker makes news roughly every month. Many people have been imprisoned on terrorism charges, for breaking a ban on protests or for disseminating false news. Others remain in indefinite pretrial detentions.
Sisi maintains Egypt is holding back Islamic extremism to prevent the country from descending into chaos like other countries in the Middle East and North Africa region, including neighbouring Libya, which fell into anarchy and civil war after a NATO intervention helped remove dictator Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.
Many Egyptians abroad who might have criticised Sisi from within the country have chosen to not return.
Taqadum al-Khatib, an academic who also worked in the nascent political scene after 2011, was researching Egypt’s former Jewish community in Germany when he learned that returning to his homeland was no longer an option.
The Egyptian cultural attaché in Berlin summoned al-Khatib for a meeting, and an official questioned him about his articles, social media posts and research. He was asked to hand over his passport but refused. Shortly thereafter, he was fired from his job at an Egyptian university. He felt lucky to be able to work toward his doctorate in Germany but misses Cairo’s bustle.
“It’s a very difficult situation. I couldn’t go back to my home,” al-Khatib told AP.
A government press officer did not respond to AP’s request for comment on targeting and intimidating Egyptians — either abroad or at home — based on their work as journalists, activists or academics, or for expressing political opinions.
‘You don’t have a country’
A reporter for a pro-Muslim Brotherhood news agency, journalist Asma Khatib covered Morsi’s short presidency amid criticism the group was using violence against opponents and seeking to monopolise power to make Egypt an Islamic state. After Morsi’s ouster, his supporters held sit-ins for his reinstatement at a square in Cairo. A month later, the new military leaders forcibly cleared them out, and more than 600 people were killed.
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Khatib documented the violence. Soon, colleagues started being arrested, and she fled Egypt — first to Malaysia, then to Indonesia and Turkey.
She was tried in absentia on espionage charges in 2015, convicted and sentenced to death. Now, she and her husband Ahmed Saad, also a journalist, and their two children are seeking asylum in South Korea.
They said they expect to never return, but also say they are lucky to be free. On the day the ruling was announced, the journalist remembered telling herself: “You don’t have a country anymore.”
“I know that there are lots of others like me. I’m not any different from those who are in prison,” she told AP.
