Marseille defies government over Covid as top official says police won't enforce bar closures

Marseille has pledged to openly defy a French government order to shut bars and restaurants to stem Covid infections, with a top official saying police will not punish those who remain open.

The southern French port city is up in arms since Olivier Véran, the health minister, announced on Thursday night that it was now on “maximum alert” due to infection levels and as such must shut all bars and restaurants for two weeks to avoid saturation in intensive care wards.

Establishments welcoming members of the public must also shut bar those with strict sanitary protocols in place, and private gatherings are limited to ten people.

The nearby town of Aix faces the same restrictions, while a dozen other cities, including Paris, face a slightly less stringent clampdown, with a curfew on bars and eateries after 10pm starting next Monday.

The government on Thursday night rejected local requests for a ten-day “moratorium” on the Marseille closures, due to take effect on Saturday, on the grounds of tentative signs that infection levels may be hitting a plateau.

In open defiance of national orders, Samia Ghali, Marseille’s deputy mayor, announced on Friday that “municipal police will not fine restaurants and bars (that remain) open.”

She said she would rather that local and national police officers tackle “joy riding, burglaries, problems linked to drugs rather than fining owners who are trying to make ends meet and keep the French economy going”.

Hundreds of bar, cafe and restaurant owners staged a protest on Friday morning outside Marseille’s commercial tribunal against the new closures, which Green mayor Michèle Rubirola said had been taken without consultation and other officials slammed as an “affront” to the city and amounted to “quasi-reconfinement”.

“We’re dying because of these idiotic decisions. We’re being ignored. It is out of the question to give in and this is just the beginning. All of France is watching,” said Bernard Marty, president of local hotel-restaurant union UMIH 13.

"Stay open -- don't close!" several supporters yelled, while booing the name of Mr Véran, who visited the city on Friday afternoon.  "We can't afford to hang about," responded the minister. "These measures are necessary, temporary but not arbitrary."

In what is becoming a battle of figures, local officials point out that the rate of infections per 100,000 dropped to 280 on September 20, down from 331 the previous week. Controversial local virologist Didier Raoult on Friday insisted indicators should not be the cause of “the slightest panic”.

But Pascal Aurier, epidemiologist at Aix-Marseille university and Marseille start hospitals, AP-HM, said it was pointless to claim numbers were dropping “over a three or four-day period”.

Half of Marseille's intensive care beds are now taken up with Covid patients. Worryingly, in Marseille’s Nord hospital, the occupation rate has now reached 90 per cent. “We are reaching saturation,” said Laurent Zieleskiewicz, deputy head of intensive care.

Over in Paris, mayor Anne Hidalgo on Friday said the city would go along with orders to slap a 10pm curfew on bars next week but that restaurants that only serve alcohol with food could continue as normal.

The new restrictions came as France’s national health agency, Santé Publique France, warned on Friday that “most all the indicators are on the rise” nationwide.

Daily cases soared past 16,000 for the first time on Thursday.

Last week, A&E admissions linked to suspected Covid cases rose by 21 per cent, hospitalisations by 34 per cent and intensive care admissions by 40 per cent nationwide, meaning the curve was now “exponential".

The number of deaths rose by 25 per cent last week, with 332 fatalities in hospitals or retirement homes, according to a weekly tally.

The virus is also spreading "more and more strongly" among older people, noted Santé Publique France with the number of cases among the over-75s having multiplied by four since mid-August to reach 55 per 100,000 nationwide.

In the light of this, Jean Castex, the prime minister, warned: “If we do nothing, the situation could reach the same levels as March. That could mean re-confinement.”

However, the Marseille revolt appears to reflect rising scepticism over the effectiveness of precautions.

Nicolas Bedos, a high-profile French film director, summed it up by writing on Twitter:

"Let's live life to the full, hug each other, kick the bucket, get fevers, cough, recover, life is too short an interlude to enjoy it reluctantly".

“Society is starting to seize the debate opposing health security and freedom,” said opinion writer Chloé Morin.

France is one of numerous European countries grappling with rising infections. In Spain, officials expanded a lockdown in and around Madrid on Friday to cover one million people - up from 850,000.