Hospitals in Paris and Marseille have begun delaying operations to free up space for the fast-rising numbers of patients arriving with Covid-19 infections.
Health minister Olivier Véran said measures would be announced for Lyon and Nice by Saturday, after curbs on public gatherings were imposed this week in Bordeaux and Marseille.
The French scientific committee set up to monitor and advise on the Covid-19 virus epidemic in the country has warned that the current spread of the virus could 'at any moment' spin out of control and concluded that it was 'highly likely that we will experience a second epidemic wave this autumn or winter'.
In France, as in other European countries emerging from the worst of the Covid-19 pandemic, the past management of the now subsiding crisis is under scrutiny, and many questions are being asked as to how the terrible toll of the virus might have been lessened by more appropriate action early on. In this report, Caroline Coq-Chodorge and Lise Barnéoud trace the chronology of events, interview those doctors involved on the frontline and reveal confidential documents from the French healthcare administration that show how the spread of the epidemic in France was out of control as of March 1st.
In the aftermath, when it comes, of the Covid-19 virus pandemic the world will undoubtedly emerge with profound changes to old orders. In one of a series of reflections upon the transformations that lie ahead, Ludovic Lamant interviewed Filipino academic Walden Bello, a leading theoretician of the anti-globalization movement, who warns against the danger of the far-right “espousing deglobalization and economic nationalism of a frightening kind”.
The French aircarft carrier Charles de Gaulle is returning early from duty in the Atlantic Ocean to its Mediterranean base of Toulon after 50 of its crew tested positive to infection by the Covid-19 coronavirus, three of whom were evacuated from the ship by air.
