Lunchtime News Wednesday 30th December 2020

News

Vaccination campaign starts today in the Alpes Maritimes - The mayor of Nice Christian Estrosi has announced today that the vaccination campaign is to be launched a week ahead of schedule, starting today in the Alpes Maritimes. According to the city council vaccination will begin at the Nice University Hospital, then continue next week in retirement homes, before being extended at the end of January by age group, starting with those over 65. On the pre-registration platform set up by the council, 10,000 people outside of nursing homes are already registered.

The mayor of Nice also went on to welcome the government's proposal to move the current curfew forward from 8pm to 6pm in Nice from January 2nd.

Curfew from 6pm for some regions - The new measure would concern some twenty departments located in the four regions of France where the incidence rate and the hospitalization rate are the highest, namely the Grand Est, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, Provence- Alpes-Côte d'Azur and Bourgogne-Franche-Comté.

Changes from 1st January 2021 – From 1st January 2021 there will several changes in France including a new reduction in council tax, the monthly compensation of 1,500 euros to self-employed workers affected by Covid-19 will come to an end, gas prices are to increase by 0.2%. Plastics will be prohibited such as plastic straws, cutlery, stirrers, sandwich boxes and drink lids. With Brexit, border controls between France and the UK have been re-established. Exporting companies will have to complete customs formalities, or even pay customs duties, when they export products outside the European Union. The minimum wage will be increased by 0.99% on January 1 to reach 1,554.58 euros gross per month, an increase of 15 euros. This increase will see the gross hourly rate increase to 10.25 euros. Finally, the price of a postage stamp in France is set to increase from January 1st from 95 cents to 1.06 euro.

Brexit - EU leaders have signed the post-Brexit trade deal agreed with Britain in a brief ceremony this morning. The texts were then to be flown to London for the signature of UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, on the eve of Britain's departure from the EU single market. The British Prime Minister is expected to tell MPs that the agreement heralds "a new relationship between Britain and the EU as sovereign equals, joined by friendship, commerce, history, interests and values".