As Coronavirus rebounds in France, Prez Macron bristles at border rules

Villeneuve-La-Garenne/Berlin/ London: French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday urged European neighbors to better coordinate cross-border virus restrictions as infections were on the rebound and as multiple countries imposed tests or quarantines on visitors from France.

Amid worries that France could become a new virus hotspot, Macron defended his government's push to restart the economy and its handling of the post-lockdown period.

Over the summer, French people traveled around the country for family gatherings and dance parties blamed for fueling the recent rise in cases.

Our country needs to ... learn to live with the virus in order to repair the economy, finance welfare aid like temporary jobless benefits, and educate its children, he said.

Paris imposed mask requirements everywhere in public starting Friday, and a fifth of French regions are now considered red zones where the virus is actively circulating.

More than 6,000 new infections were reported Thursday, up from several hundred a day in May and June.

But hospitalisations and deaths remain relatively low, and the government is sticking to plans to reopen all its schools starting Tuesday, and the Tour de France is starting its three-week trek around the country Saturday.

Now that Britain, Germany and Belgium have imposed new restrictions on people arriving from all or parts of France, Macron called for better European coordination.

Let's have the same criteria, he said Friday. Let's not repeat the errors of March, when chaotic unilateral border closures left lines of trucks stuck on roads and travelers stranded.

He said it made no sense to close borders, particularly for millions of workers within the EU's travel-free zone who cross borders to work.

Speaking through a mask, he admitted that masks are bothersome, annoying but called it a reasonable constraint that we should accept for a certain time to revive the economy.

He also promised 15 billion euros ( 17.8 billion) in state investment in projects to bring jobs and manufacturing back to France. He spoke after inaugurating a new production site at the Seqens pharmaceutical plant north of Paris.

France suffered shortages of masks, medicines and other medical supplies at the height of the virus crisis, notably because of its dependence on suppliers in China.

Chancellor Angela Merkel is cautioning that the Coronavirus crisis will make life more difficult in the coming months than it has been over the summer and is calling on Germans to continue taking the threat seriously.

Germany's response to the virus is generally viewed as relatively successful, but the country has seen a pickup in new infections in recent weeks, as have many others in Europe.

Merkel said Friday: We have to expect that some things will be even more difficult in the coming months than in the summer. She said it is important to keep infections down as people increasingly meet indoors.

She told reporters in Berlin that we will have to keep living with the virus. The long-time German leader said she had three priorities, including ensuring that children can continue access education despite the pandemic, ensuring economic revival, and maintaining social cohesion at a time when many in society are suffering hardship.

Meanwhile, the British government is encouraging workers to return to their offices amid concern that the number of people working from home during the Coronavirus pandemic is hurting coffee bars, restaurants and other businesses in city centers.

The government plans to roll out a media campaign next week that will encourage employers to highlight the efforts they've made to protect staff from COVID-19.

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said Friday that this was the right time for many people to return to work because children will be going back to school next week. He also said prolonged isolation from friends and colleagues is taking a toll on mental health.

For many people's mental health it is important to return to a safe workplace, so that's why workplaces are being made COVID secure over the summer, and for a lot of people it will be the right time to return,'' Schapps told the BBC. "Others, I accept, will carry on in a much more flexible way than they did in the past.''