Deconfinement: The police evacuate the Canal Saint-Martin, alcohol now banned on the riverbanks

Published by · Photos by My de Sortiraparis · Published on May 12th, 2020 at 02:35 p.m.
On this first deconfinement day, the Canal Saint Martin has been evacuated by the police at around 8 p.m. as dozens of Parisians gathered there.

The Health Minister said it again this Monday as of midday, as it is the first day confinement is lifted: “We will have to live with the virus for a while and the end of confinement does not mean we resume life as it was before”.

This message clearly has not been heard by some Parisians who wanted to go out for a breath of fresh air by the Canal Saint-Martin. If they were on their own or in small groups, many of them have had the same idea and a it caused a mass effect by the Canal north of Paris.

Enough for a police squad had to step in with speakers and ordering to “move”.

This call for respecting the law – banning any gathering over 10 people – has been recorded by BFMTV. On the footage, we clearly see Parisians, beers in hand, paying no heed to the situation.

 

For the record, this mass effect has been one of the first signals leading the Prefect of Police to ban the access to the Seine riverbanks as well as to parks and gardens. At the moment, R0, this disease transmission indicator, is 0.6: it means someone infected by Covid-19 can contaminate on an average less than one person. This number could increase if French gather in public spaces, causing, perhaps, a second containment wave.

In the meantime, Christophe Castaner asked the prefect to ban alcohol along the Canal Saint-Martin and the Seine riverbanks. The Prefect of Police has just validated the decree and starting tomorrow, it will be banned to drinks along the banks.

Tweet reads: “On the 1st day of deconfinement, the Prefect of Police is sorry to take measures to ban alcohol on the public highway as long as health instructions are not considered by all not as an obligation but as a duty

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