Lunchtime News Thursday 17th September 2020

Local 

Fire - Fifteen people have been evacuated following a fire in a building on the Route de Bellet in Nice. Firefighters intervened in the early hours of this morning after the fire broke out on the first floor of an apartment building.

No one was injured in the incident however 14 of those evacuated have had to be relocated.

Strike action - Nearly 500 people have demonstrated in Nice after strike action was called by unions claiming to “mobilise for a better future”. Due to today’s strike action no trams are running in Nice and bus services are disrupted.  

Covid-19 intensive care figures - The number of people treated in France in intensive care for COVID-19 has risen for the twentieth consecutive day on Wednesday to a three-month high of 803, while the number of new daily cases was the third highest on record.

The number of people in intensive care is still almost nine times lower than the April 8 peak of 7,148, but the upward trend is putting a renewed strain on the hospital systems in certain parts, such as Marseille.

National 

French court rules that transgender woman cannot officially be recognized as the biological mother - France's highest court has ruled that a transgender woman cannot officially be recognised as the biological mother of the child she conceived with her wife, in a ruling described as "scandalous" by her lawyer.

The court ruled on Wednesday that to become one of the six-year-old girl's two legal mothers, the 51-year-old transgender woman would have to adopt her.

Born male, the applicant was recognised as a woman by French authorities in 2011. She then had a child with her wife in 2014, having not undergone the operation to have her male reproductive organs removed. She has fought ever since to be recognised as the child's second mother, not father.

The woman's lawyer, Clelia Richard, described the ruling as "scandalous" and said it was a "lost opportunity."

Lawyers for the woman said they would take the matter to the European Court of Human Rights.

Illegal to pay for faster test results - As the queues for being tested for Covid-19 grow longer in France, the Ministry of Health has reminded the public that it is “illegal to offer faster results in return for payment”.

Paying for faster PCR results: the illegal practice is spreading in laboratories where queues and deadlines for results keep getting longer. Since July, anyone can get tested for free and without a prescription.

French media has claimed that in Paris, a laboratory claims 96 euros to have results in "24-48h maximum" and at the entrance of another center, in Seine-Saint-Denis, patients are told that results will not be ready before 24 hours minimum, except on if you pay 100 euros to obtain them within the hour.

This practice is illegal, reminds the Ministry of Health, with all tests being funded bu the social  security.