France to enter into a second national lockdown with borders shut

The French President Emmanuel Macron announced to the nation on live TV that France will now enter into a second full national lockdown from Friday.

The second lockdown means that no one is allowed to travel between regions anywhere in France and all external borders outside of the Schengen area will be closed.

All bars, restaurants will close, but schools will remain open, and the French government will review the situation in 15 days’ time if the situation has improved.

Macron told his nation that France needs the lockdown to tackle the high rise in infections which is “circulating more quickly than we had forecast.”

He warned that France is now on high alert and added that “we have not done as well as we should have” in keep the number of deaths and infections down.

The President said that the economy “must not stop” and people will be told to work from home as France has been overwhelmed by the “rapid acceleration” of the virus.

The French President said in a grim warning that herd immunity strategy would result in 400,000 excess deaths from the virus.

Macron said that people should only leave their homes to buy essential items, to seek medical care and people are only allowed to exercise for one hour a day.

He warned that the second wave of the virus is likely to be “harder, more deadly” than the first wave which struck in March.

On Wednesday evening France recorded 36,437 new confirmed cases of coronavirus.

It also expected that Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands and the Czech Republic could enter into national lockdowns within days as they also as recording exceptionally high cases.

The German Chancellor Angela Merkel also announced on Wednesday evening that Germany will enter into a second national lockdown from 2 November.

This comes as the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday, that Europe is now, once again the epicentre of Europe and that governments are “well behind” the fight.

The executive director of the WHO health emergencies programme, Dr Michael Ryan said that governments “take some serious acceleration” with “much more” stricter measures to combat the virus.

Dr Ryan told a press conference, “There’s no question that the European region is an epicentre for disease right now.

“Right now we are well behind this virus in Europe so getting ahead of it is going to take some serious acceleration in what we do and maybe much more comprehensive nature of measures that are going to be needed.”