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France is set to further relax lockdown restrictions next week, as Emmanuel Macron continues to ease his country out of a third and deadly wave of coronavirus infections.
The biggest change will be an update to the nightly curfew, currently from 9pm to 6am, which will start two hours later from 9 June, at 11pm.
Restaurants, cafes and bars will also be able to start serving customers indoors, but only with 50 per cent capacity and a maximum of six people per table.
It comes as the nation’s seven-day moving average of daily Covid deaths fell on Thursday to below 100 for the first time since 27 October, according to official figures.
The number of people in intensive care for Covid-19 continued to decrease too, by 77, to 2,677. The figure has more than halved since a peak of 6,001 on 26 April.
Other changes from 9 June will be an increased capacity for museums, cinemas, sports venues and non-essential shops, which all reopened on 19 May.
There was no update on advice concerning working from home, which is still encouraged wherever possible, or on children aged six and over having to wear face masks at school. It likely means these two measures will stay in place as others begin to shift.
All restrictions and France’s curfew are scheduled to end on 30 June but Mr Macron said a final decision on this will be made in the coming weeks, when more recent health data can be analysed.
The president has been under intense pressure from businesses and an increasingly fatigued public to open up France’s economy once more.
It is likely this influenced his decision to announce on Friday that fully vaccinated travellers, from countries such as the UK, US and much of Asia, will be able to travel to France from 9 June with just a negative antigen test.
British travellers who have had both vaccinations more than 14 days prior to travel will not need a “compelling reason” to enter from next Wednesday. They will be able to prove their vaccinated status via the NHS app, though France remains on Britain’s amber travel list – meaning those returning to the UK must isolate at home for 10 days and take two PCR tests.
The border opening allows EU passport holders in the UK to enter without any proof of testing at all, according to plans set out in France’s “Strategy for Reopening Borders” document.
While leisure travel to amber countries is not illegal, it is being discouraged.
French health authorities on Thursday reported 8,161 new cases of coronavirus in the past 24 hours, taking the total to 5.69 million, the world’s fourth-highest.
The daily total has now stayed below 10,000 for a fifth straight day, a pattern unseen since early September.
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