Macron aims to avoid new lockdown despite ‘exponential’ virus spread

French president Emmanuel Macron says he will do everything in his power to avoid a second nationwide lockdown to counter the spread of the coronavirus, but he can not exclude the possibility.

Mr Macron spoke to journalists late on Friday, hours after the directorate general of health (DGS) announced that 7,379 new cases of Covid-19 had been detected in the preceding 24 hours, a record since mass testing began.

“The progression of the epidemic is exponential,” the DGS warned in a statement. Twenty-one of 96 mainland French departments, including the Paris region, are now classified Covid red zones. Most large cities have made the wearing of face masks compulsory outside the home.

Asked if he would declare another lockdown similar to the two-month confinement last spring, the French president told members of the Presidential Press Association: “We shall do everything to avoid it, but this virus continues to surprise us . . . I would not have learned much if I said I exclude it totally.”

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Mr Macron said France's €460 billion investment in "a massive plan of resistance and resilience" was "preparation for the France of 2030". Only a year ago, economic stimulus was "heresy" for France's partners.

French citizens are estimated to have hoarded €100 billion since the beginning of the pandemic. To encourage them to start spending, they must be given confidence in the healthcare system and stop fearing unemployment or tax rises after the epidemic, Mr Macron said. France has avoided mass firings through a furlough scheme that pays 85 per cent of salaries.

Covid debt

“We will have a Covid debt to manage, but we will spread it over the long term. It is indisputably necessary, but we will prevent it weighing on the generation that is entering the workforce,” Mr Macron said.

The present approach is the opposite of that taken in the economic downturn of the 1930s, when the government adopted extremely restrictive monetary and budgetary policies.

Mr Macron said the French felt vulnerable, that they had lost control of their own lives. Violence was a recurring theme in French politics, but its “banalisation” over the past four years was very serious. It was partly attributable to extremist groups attaching themselves to street demonstrations. The epidemic had disrupted drug-dealing networks, which had also increased violence.

Asked whether the “yellow vest” protesters who rioted in 2018-2019 might now become “yellow masks”, in other words, whether he expected a social explosion, Mr Macron said he had been humbled by experience, and that few foresaw the yellow-vest revolt.

“France is one of the countries that has most socialised the cost of the epidemic,” he said. “Less than 10 per cent of the cost has been borne by households . . . Compare France to other countries. We had a crazy debate about making masks free. What country distributed 55 million free masks?”

France needs to “refind the original meaning of the republican spirit”, Mr Macron said. He plans to commemorate the 150th anniversary of Gambetta’s September 4th, 1870 declaration of the third republic in the wake of France’s defeat by Prussia.

Russia and Turkey

Mr Macron spoke harshly of Russia and Turkey. France was "extremely worried and in total solidarity" with the Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny, who is in hospital after an apparent poisoning. "We will be extremely demanding vis-à-vis Russia for transparency in this matter," he said.

President Vladimir Putin told Russian public television on Thursday that he has a reserve force prepared to intervene in Belarus "if the situation is out of control" in Russia's neighbour, where long-time president Alexander Lukashenko recently won an election his opponents claim was rigged.

The EU did not recognise the re-election of Mr Lukashenko, Mr Macron noted. “I told Putin that all outside intervention in Belarus, beginning with intervention by Russian forces . . . would regionalise and internationalise” the conflict.

Regarding tension between France and Turkey in the eastern Mediterranean, Mr Macron said Turkey had not behaved as a Nato ally in recent years, which was the reason for his statement that Nato was "brain dead" last year. Turkey had attacked France's Kurdish allies in Syria "without warning or co-ordination".

By prospecting for gas in Cypriot and Greek waters, Turkey was attacking the sovereignty of two European Union members, Mr Macron said. "What would be our credibility in Belarus if we don't protect the sovereignty of our own members?" The deployment of a French frigate and the repositioning of two Rafale fighter jets in Greece was a "proportionate" response, he said.