Riviera lunchtime News Tuesday 19th May 2020

Voluntary self isolation - France’s minister of Foreign affairs, Jean-Yves Le Drian has announced this morning,  that any French nationals and permanent residents in France arriving from abroad outside of the EU, are to self isolate on a “voluntary” basis for a fortnight. 

The Minister confirmed that the “voluntary” self isolation for those arriving from outside of the European Union will be requested from tomorrow Wednesday 20th May.

Scientific Council approves local elections in France for late June - France’s Scientific Council has said that it does not oppose to a second round of local elections in late June.

The Scientific Council confirmed that local elections can be held, but on condition that a series of sanitary measures are respected.

100km travel limitation - 200,000 checks have been carried out in France concerning the 100 km travel limitation set by the French government at the beginning of the easing of lockdown measures. In total, 950 fines were issued during the first week of deconfinement.

Request to make motorways free of charge for the summer rejected by France’s transport minister - Following a request made last week by Carole Delga, president of the Occitania region, requesting that motorway companies in France make all pay tolls free of charge for the summer season, France’s Transport Minister Jean-Baptiste Djebbari has said, this morning, that the request was “neither realistic nor desirable”.

Carole Delga, had requested free access to all motorways in France throughout the summer, the idea was to encourage people to travel within France and boost the tourism sector.

Private beaches - Meanwhile, several private beaches on the Côte d’Azur have already started preparations for the summer season. As the French government plans to make an announcement on May 25th which could authorise the reopening of restaurants and private beaches from June 2nd. Many have already started setting up, as is the case for Castel plage in Nice, which is completely dismantled every year and usual opens in April.  

Study shows consumption of alcohol, tobacco and cannabis amongst French adolescents - A recent study has shown that the consumption of alcohol, tobacco and cannabis is decreasing among young French adolescents aged 11 to 15, but still remains above the European average.

According to the study by the French Monitoring Center for Drugs and Drug Addiction (OFDT) released on Tuesday, a third of middle school students say they have tasted alcohol before starting 6th grade (compared to 49.8% in 2014).

Cigarettes are also much less popular with only a third of French teenagers having ever tried them at the end of college in 2018, compared to more than half in 2014.

And experimentation with cannabis among 15-year-olds in France, which has been increasing continuously since 2006, fell by 12 points in 2018 with 16.5% of boys and girls admitting to having tried it.

 

 

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