France starts limiting travel exterior the EU to curb the spread of Covid-19

French border law enforcement turned away some travellers certain for destinations outdoors the EU on Monday after new guidelines banning flights to and from nations outdoors the bloc arrived into drive at midnight. 

© Eric Piermont, AFP (file image)

French authorities have confined the factors for which people can travel outdoors the EU to urgent own or family members company, a overall health crisis or for perform-associated voyages. Legitimate individual reasons contain the loss of life or imminent death of a close family members member, a boy or girl viewing a parent who has shared custody, to comply with a judicial summons or for scientific studies abroad. Residents and citizens of other international locations could also return property. 

Legitimate get the job done-associated explanations for vacation include small business pursuits that can’t be postponed or carried out remotely, journey for health pros battling Covid-19, diplomatic missions and all those involved in professional sporting situations.

Travellers have to existing evidence of a negative Covid-19 examination taken no much more than 72 hrs before travel as properly as a signed kind asserting they have not been in make contact with with any person identified with Covid-19 during the previous 14 days. These circumstances will have to be also achieved on return to France. 

Primary Minister Jean Castex declared the new measures on Friday as element of new initiatives to comprise Covid-19 infections and stay clear of an additional nationwide lockdown.

By curbing international travel, the federal government hopes to get a better grip on the circulation of the coronavirus and its the latest variants, which have been spreading at a fearsome rate.

Travellers need to initial clearly show the demanded documentation at airline counters in the course of check-in and then once again at border control, where by agents were being no for a longer time making it possible for automated passport scanning but alternatively checking each individual document as passenger queues grew more time.

The time essential for each passenger can simply attain 5 or 10 minutes, in contrast with just seconds ordinarily, as brokers attempt to determine irrespective of whether somebody has achieved the prerequisites for owning an urgent motive to travel.

>> A total record of acceptable motives and required paperwork can be observed on the French governing administration web page by clicking listed here. 

Border police demand published evidence just before allowing passengers to board – as Toure, a Malian countrywide, observed out when he attempted to leave France for Bamako with no the vital files.

“I claimed that my mom, whom I hadn’t viewed in a whilst, was sick but they told me I wanted evidence,” Toure, who withheld his final title, explained to AFP at Paris’s main airport, Roissy-Charles-de-Gaulle. Following currently being turned away, Toure – who functions for a French public performs foundation – managed to access his mother’s physician in Bamako, who sent him a hardly legible observe by WhatsApp. He tried again and this time was waved as a result of.

“The concept is to limit the outbound-inbound loops among France and overseas,” Julien Gentile, head of the border police for the Roissy and Le Bourget airports, told AFP.

President Emmanuel Macron has made a decision, for now, not to impose a third countrywide lockdown, deciding upon a diverse route than France’s neighbours this kind of as Britain and Germany.

Health and fitness Minister Olivier Véran explained Sunday that the quantity of new coronavirus cases had barely greater more than the past 7 days, while other indicators – this sort of as traces of the virus detected in squander drinking water – have been also reassuring.

The French authorities set in place a rigid nighttime curfew right after a next lockdown ended in December.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)