PARIS: It’s a grand day for the French. Cafe and restaurant terraces reopened Wednesday after a six-month coronavirus shutdown deprived residents of the essence of French life — sipping coffee and wine with friends.
The French government is lifting restrictions incrementally to stave off a resurgence of COVID-19 and to give citizens back some of their signature “joie de vivre.” As part of the plan’s first stage, France’s 7 p.m. nightly curfew was pushed back to 9 p.m. and museums, theaters and cinemas reopened along with outdoor cafe terraces.
President Emmanuel Macron, taking a seat at a cafe terrace, chatted with customers and Prime Minister Jean Castex, projecting a mood of measured optimism.
“Let’s get used to try and live together,” Macron told reporters. “If we manage to get well organized collectively and continue vaccinating, have a common discipline as citizens, there’s no reason why we can’t continue moving forward.”
Castex planned to attend a cinema later Wednesday. Actress Emmanuel Beart, meanwhile, went to a movie theater opening in Paris where her latest film “L’Etreinte” (“The Embrace“) was showing. The appetite for seeing movies was such that many in Paris lined up at breakfast to see a movie instead of getting their morning croissant.
Moviegoer Michael Souhaite, who works in the industry, set his alarm clock to make sure to be there for his 9 a.m. showing of “Drunk.”
“I really need to go to the movies,” he said. “I go to movies maybe twice a week, minimum. So for me it was really, really, really important... Today it’s almost emotional to be here.”
France is not the first European country to start getting back a semblance of social and cultural life. Italy, Belgium, Hungary and other nations already allow outdoor dining while drinking and eating indoors began Monday in Britain.
Eateries in France have been closed since the end of October, the longest time of any European country except Poland, where bars and restaurants reopened Saturday for outdoor service after being closed for seven months.
Still, the French government has put limits on how much fun can be had. Restaurants can fill only 50 percent of their outdoor seating and have no more than six people at a table. Movie theaters can only seat 35 percent of capacity, while museums must restrict entries to allow space between visitors.
Starting on June 9, the French government plans to move the curfew back to 11 p.m. and to permit indoor dining. Also on that date, France will begin to welcome tourists from non-EU destinations provided they have some sort of coronavirus passport or health pass. The final phase of the three-stage reopening plan is scheduled for June 30, when the curfew will end and all other restrictions will be lifted, if pandemic conditions allow.
Macron’s plan to bring France out of the pandemic aren’t just about resuscitating long-closed restaurants, boutiques and museums, but also about preparing his possible campaign for a second term. Before next year’s presidential election, Macron is focusing on saving jobs and reviving the pandemic-battered French economy.
France has recorded more than 108,000 deaths due to COVID-19, among the highest tolls in Europe. But virus deaths, admissions to critical care units and the coronavirus infection rate are now on the decline.
Dr. Michel Slama, chief of the Intensive Care Unit at Amiens Hospital, said his stance, like Macron’s, was “optimistic but prudent.”
“We are attentive about the reopening but worried is not the word,” he told The Associated Press. “There has been a significant drop in emergency hospital admissions for the virus in France. That’s good news. The high vaccine rate now we hope will help us avoid a new wave.”
About 40 percent of France’s adult population has received at least one COVID-19 vaccine dose — but that rate is still well behind Britain’s 70 percent and behind several other EU nations.
Tourists waited excitedly as the cordon around the world’s most visited museum and home of the “Mona Lisa,” the Louvre, was finally lifted.
“It means a lot, you know. It means COVID-19 is starting to finish, when it’s the opening of all museums and public areas,” said visitor Walid Hneini.
Benoit Puez, a Parisian art lover, was more understated but still pleased about France opening up.
“Maybe I didn’t really miss it, but we are happy it’s reopening. It’s a stage,” he said.
Grand day for the French: Cafe and bistro terraces reopen
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Grand day for the French: Cafe and bistro terraces reopen
- French government is lifting restrictions incrementally to stave off a resurgence of COVID-19
- France's 7 p.m. nightly curfew was pushed back to 9 p.m. and museums, theaters and cinemas reopened along with outdoor cafe terraces
University students lead a strike in Serbia as populist president plans a rally to counter protests
- Daily traffic blockades took place on Friday in various cities and towns in the Balkan nation
- “Let’s take freedom in our hands,” students told the citizens in their strike call
BELGRADE: A student-led strike closed down numerous businesses and drew tens of thousands into the streets throughout Serbia on Friday as populist President Aleksandar Vucic planned a big rally to counter persistent anti-government protests that have challenged his tight grip on power.
Daily traffic blockades took place on Friday in various cities and towns in the Balkan nation, held to commemorate the victims of a deadly canopy collapse which killed 15 people in November. Huge crowds later flooded the streets for noisy protest marches through the capital Belgrade and elsewhere in the country.
“Let’s take freedom in our hands,” students told the citizens in their strike call.
Many in Serbia believe the huge concrete canopy at a train station in the northern city of Novi Sad fell down because of sloppy reconstruction work that resulted from corruption.
Weeks-long protests demanding accountability over the crash have been the biggest since Vucic came to power more than a decade ago. He has faced accusations of curbing democratic freedoms despite formally seeking European Union membership for Serbia.
It was not immediately possible to determine how many people and companies joined the students’ call for a one-day general strike on Friday. They included restaurants, bars, theaters, bakeries, various shops and bookstores.
Vucic will gather his supporters in the central town of Jagodina later on Friday. He has announced plans to form a nationwide political movement in the style of Russia’s President Vladimir Putin that would help ensure the dominance of his right-wing Serbian Progressive Party.
The president and his mainstream media have accused the students of working under orders from foreign intelligence services to overthrow the authorities while pro-government thugs have repeatedly attacked protesting citizens.
No incidents were reported during the 15-minute traffic blockades on Friday that started at 11.52, the exact time of the canopy collapse in Novi Sad.
During a blockade last week in Belgrade, a car rammed into protesting students, seriously injuring a young woman.
Serbian universities have been blockaded for two months, along with many schools. A lawyers’ association also has gone on strike but it remained unclear how many people stayed away from work in the state-run institutions on Friday.
As well as Belgrade and Novi Sad, protest marches were also held Friday in the southern city of Nis and smaller cities, and even in Jagodina ahead of Vucic’s arrival.
“Things can’t stay the same anymore,” actor Goran Susljik told N1 regional television. “Students have offered us a possibility for a change.”
Serbia’s prosecutors have filed charges against 13 people for the canopy collapse, including a government minister and several state officials. But the former construction minister Goran Vesic has been released from detention, fueling doubts over the probe’s independence.
The main railway station in Novi Sad was renovated twice in recent years as part of a wider infrastructure deal with Chinese state companies.
Ukraine to evacuate more children from frontline villages
- “I have decided to start a mandatory evacuation of families with children” from around two dozen frontline villages and settlements, Donetsk region governor Vadym Filashkin said
- Around 110 children lived in the area affected
KYIV: Ukraine on Friday announced the mandatory evacuation of dozens of families with children from frontline villages in the eastern Donetsk region.
Russia’s troops have been grinding across the region in recent months, capturing a string of settlements, most of them completely destroyed in the fighting since Russia invaded in February 2022.
“I have decided to start a mandatory evacuation of families with children” from around two dozen frontline villages and settlements, Donetsk region governor Vadym Filashkin said on Telegram.
Around 110 children lived in the area affected, he added.
“Children should live in peace and tranquility, not hide from shelling,” he said, urging parents to heed the order to leave.
The area is in the west of the Donetsk region, close to the internal border with Ukraine’s Dnipropretovsk region.
Russia in 2022 claimed to have annexed the Donetsk region, but has not asserted a formal claim to Dnipropretovsk.
The order to leave comes a day after officials in the northeastern Kharkiv region announced the evacuation of 267 children from several settlements there under threat of Russian attack.
Trump to visit disaster zones in North Carolina, California on first trip of second term
- The president is also heading to hurricane-battered western North Carolina
WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump is heading into the fifth day of his second term in office, striving to remake the traditional boundaries of Washington by asserting unprecedented executive power.
The president is also heading to hurricane-battered western North Carolina and wildfire-ravaged Los Angeles, using the first trip of his second administration to tour areas where politics has clouded the response to deadly disasters.
Kyiv says received bodies of 757 killed Ukrainian troops
- The exchange of prisoners and return of their remains is one of the few areas of cooperation between Moscow and Kyiv
KYIV: Kyiv said Friday it had received the bodies of hundreds of Ukrainian troops killed in battle with Russian forces, in one of the largest repatriations since Russia invaded.
The exchange of prisoners and return of their remains is one of the few areas of cooperation between Moscow and Kyiv since the Kremlin mobilized its army in Ukraine in February 2022.
The repatriation announced by the Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War, a Ukrainian state agency, is the largest in months and underscores the high cost and intensity of fighting ahead of the war’s three-year anniversary.
“The bodies of 757 fallen defenders were returned to Ukraine,” the Coordination Headquarters said in a post on social media.
It specified that 451 of the bodies were returned from the “Donetsk direction,” probably a reference to the battle for the mining and transport hub of Pokrovsk.
The city that once had around 60,000 residents has been devastated by months of Russian bombardments and is the Kremlin’s top military priority at the moment.
The statement also said 34 dead were returned from morgues inside Russia, where Kyiv last August mounted a shock offensive into Russia’s western Kursk region.
Friday’s repatriation is at least the fifth involving 500 or more Ukrainian bodies since October.
Military death tolls are state secrets both in Russia and Ukraine but Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky revealed last December that 43,000 Ukrainian troops had been killed and 370,000 had been wounded since 2022.
The total number is likely to be significantly higher.
Russia does not announce the return of its bodies or give up-to-date information on the numbers of its troops killed fighting in Ukraine.
EU says it is ready to ease sanctions on Syria
- The top EU diplomat said the EU would start by easing sanctions that are necessary to rebuild the country
ANKARA: The European Union’s foreign policy chief said the 27-member bloc is ready to ease sanctions on Syria, but added the move would be a gradual one contingent on the transitional Syrian government’s actions.
Speaking during a joint news conference in Ankara with Turkiye’s foreign minister on Friday, Kaja Kallas also said the EU was considering introducing a “fallback mechanism” that would allow it to reimpose sanctions if the situation in Syria worsens.
“If we see the steps of the Syrian leadership going to the right direction, then we are also willing to ease next level of sanctions,” she said. “We also want to have a fallback mechanism. If we see that the developments are going to the wrong direction, we are also putting the sanctions back.”
The top EU diplomat said the EU would start by easing sanctions that are necessary to rebuild the country that has been battered by more than a decade of civil war.
The plan to ease sanctions on Syria would be discussed at a EU foreign ministers meeting on Monday, Kallas said.
