Wearing a mask will soon be compulsory in certain areas of Paris

Forcing Parisians to wear a mask to limit the spread of Covid-19 is the bet of the authorities. Faced with the increase in the number of contamination in the city and at the request of Anne Hidalgo, the mayor of the capital, the Prefecture of Police announced on Tuesday that it wanted to make it compulsory to wear a mask in “some high-traffic outdoor public spaces”. The list of venues is currently under negotiation. According to The Parisianthe banks of the Seine and the Saint-Martin canal, the open-air markets, certain parks and gardens, the shopping streets and the surroundings of stations are the areas targeted by the town hall.

“We are going to rely on feedback from borough mayors to define the zones as precisely as possible. Wearing a mask is painful, especially when it’s hot. If the areas are chosen intelligently, the Parisians will wear it”, assures Anne Souyris, deputy in charge of health. “Regarding masks, we are currently working with the Prefecture of Police to define in which areas it may be useful to make it compulsory to wear a mask”, says Emmanuel Grégoire, the first deputy on social networks. Franceinfo suggests that the device should be presented at the end of the week. The obligation to wear a mask in certain sectors of the city could arise “within 48 or 72 hours” said Anne Souyris yesterday.

Return of the pandemic

Why such a rush? The number of contamination with Covid-19 is starting again in the country and in particular in Paris. According to the incidence rate of positive test compared to the population, Paris is the third most affected department in France after Guyana and Mayenne. For weeks, Public Health France has been warning about the increase in the number of contamination but also the increase in people hospitalized. “After falling until June, all indicators now show a rise in Covid-19 in Paris and its region, observes Anne Souyris with the World. The movement has been slow, but steady for a month. There has been a clear shift. It’s sad, but we are at the beginning of a second wave.

However, despite all these alerts, it is clear that wearing a mask has become an option in the wardrobe of the French. On July 31, the Minister of Health, Olivier Véran, announced that a decree gave the power to the prefects of the department to publish decrees imposing the wearing of a mask outdoors. An evolution since at the end of the confinement, many municipalities had expressed this wish but had been rejected for lack of a clear national policy in favor of the wearing of the mask.