France to reopen cafes, museums, cinemas from this month

PARIS • French cafes, cultural venues and businesses that have been closed due to the Covid-19 pandemic will reopen in several phases, President Emmanuel Macron said as he announced a four-stage calendar for reopening the country.

Museums, theatres, cinemas and concert halls will reopen on May 19, along with non-essential shops and outdoor seating at cafes and restaurants, he told French newspapers on Thursday.

Cafes and restaurants will have to wait till June 9 to be allowed to serve clients indoors, he added.

Mr Macron also gave a timetable for lifting an unpopular night-time curfew which has turned French cities into ghost towns after 7pm.

He said the curfew would be progressively eased - to 9pm on May 19 and 11pm on June 9 - before being fully lifted on June 30.

France is nearing the end of a third national lockdown imposed to try to tame a severe third wave of infections. Daily new cases have fallen in the past month, from about 40,000 to 27,000 on average over the past week.

Mr Macron said it is time to start "resuming our French-style way of life", citing the need for "conviviality", culture and sport.

But some health experts warned against lifting restrictions on gatherings too soon, fearing the gains of recent weeks could be reversed.

Epidemiologist Catherine Hill of a Paris clinic warned that a large-scale lifting of curbs would be "absolutely unwise", noting that at 5,981, the number of Covid-19 patients in intensive care was still higher than at the peak of the second wave last November.

Mr Macron said France is not yet ready to open vaccinations to all, but there are enough doses to offer jabs from today to people aged over 18 and classified as obese.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE