France

Starting April 24 France will order a strict 10-day quarantine for all travellers coming from Brazil in a bid to prevent the spread of a coronavirus variant first found in the South American county. Also, only people residing in France or holding a French or European Union passport will be allowed to fly to the country.

The same measures will also gradually be put in place by April 24 for people returning from Argentina, Chile and South Africa, where the presence of other coronavirus variants were detected, the prime minister's office said.

France suspended all flights from Brazil on Tuesday amid mounting fears over the particularly contagious Covid variant that has been sweeping the South American country.

"We note that the situation is getting worse and so we have decided to suspend all flights between Brazil and France until further notice," Castex said, drawing scattered applause from lawmakers.

Castex noted that travelers from Brazil already needed to test negative for the virus before their departure and upon arrival in France, and also quarantine for 10 days.

The French parliamentarians voted by a majority for a ban on domestic flights on routes that can be covered by train in less than two and a half hours. Flights from Paris to Lyon or Bordeaux could thus soon be a thing of the past.

Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire had already voiced such ideas in May 2020, when state aid for AirFrance-KLM was decided. The weekend's vote picks up on these plans and aims to help reduce CO₂ emissions permanently - even if the air travel industry picks up again after the global pandemic. The ban is part of a broader climate law that aims to reduce French carbon dioxide emissions by 40 per cent by 2030 compared to 1990 levels.

France has started producing the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna Coronavirus vaccines to increase production in the European Union. Drug manufacturer Delpharm is producing the Pfizer/BioNTech in its plant in Saint-Rémy-sur-Avre. CDMO Recipharm is producing the Moderna vaccine in its facility in the Loire Valley.

President Emmanuel Macron announced on Thursday a third national, month-long lockdown for France starting Saturday. All schools, nurseries and universities will be closed until April 26th. The country will resume reopening from Mid-May on with strict rules.

Macron: "I know that there is a lot of weariness, fatigue. I know that there is also sometimes nervousness, anger. The success of this month of April and of this strategy depends on each of us, on our spirit of responsibility. This is how we can rebuild this path of hope, the one that will allow us to gradually find a life again. normal."

A UN Mission in Mali has just reported 19 civilians gathered for a wedding died in a French army air strike targeting jihadists in January in central Mali. France denies any wrongdoing.

France bears a "grave and overwhelming share of responsibility" for the genocide, says the 1,200-page report prepared by historian Vincent Duclert and 12 collaborators for the attention of Emmanuel Macron.

It says French authorities "failed" during the four years of escalation in Rwanda: they "strengthened" the corrupt, racist dictatorship in the capital, Kigali, and themselves pursued an "ethnicist" view of the conflict. Specifically, France had trained the Rwandan army - from whose circles the Hutu killers came - and supplied it with "considerable quantities of weapons and ammunition."

However, the Duclert report also states that France did not directly equip the murder gangs. Rather, Paris "did not understand" what was going on in Rwanda. There was therefore no actual complicity in the genocide. In short, the report, for which the authors had unrestricted access to the archives, including those of the Élysée Palace, concludes that there was joint responsibility, but not joint guilt.

French President Emmanuel Macron said on Tuesday that Paris would reopen its embassy in the Libyan capital Tripoli next Monday to show its support for the new authorities.

Speaking alongside Mohammed al-Menfi, the head of the Libyan presidency council, Macron said France and its European partners would back Libya's political efforts and called for Turkish and Russian forces to leave the country as soon as possible.

France will move on to Phase 2 of Coronavirus vaccination. Appointments will be authorized for all people over 70 from Saturday March 27th on, Emmanuel Macron announced on Tuesday. The country now has "an acceleration of the delivery of the number of doses and therefore we can move on to a second phase of more massive vaccination," Macron said.

Alain Fischer, France's vaccination chief, said Monday that he excepts a return to some kind of "normal" life by either Summer or Autumn. France has just resumed use of the AstraZeneca Coronavirus vaccine last week and Prime Minister Jean Castex received the first dose of the vaccine on Thursday.

French Prime Minister Jean Castex announced a four-week lockdown for 16 regions, including Paris, the Île-de-France region, Hauts-de-France and parts of la Normandie, will start Friday at midnight. Essential stores and schools will remain open and the curfew will start at 7pm. The lockdown is imposed to prevent a third wave.

Several European countries, inclduing France, Italy, Cyprus, Latvia, Portugal, Germany, the Netherlands and Lithuania will resume administering AstraZeneca's Covid-19 vaccine in the following days after European Medicines Agency (EMA) announced the vaccine was "safe and effective".

Emer Cooke, head of the EMA, said that while "a small number of cases of rare and unusual but very serious clotting disorders" were uncovered, the agency did not find that the vaccine caused an increase in the risk of blood clots.

Members of the lower house of parliament unanimously approved France's consent laws on Monday. The minimum age of sexual consent is now set at 15. Sexual intercourse with children under that age will considered rape and will be punishable with up to 20 years in jail.

A total of 13 European countries have suspended the use of the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine as of Tuesday due to blood clot concerns. Germany, France, Italy, Span, Portugal, Luxembourg and Slovenia suspended the vaccine on Monday, Sweden and Latvia followed on Tuesday.

Germany on Monday halted the use of the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine, the Health Ministry announced in a statement. Italy, France and Spain follow suit later in the day.

"After new reports of thrombroses of the cerebral veins in connection with the vaccination in Germany and Europe, the PEI considers further investigations to be necessary," the Health Ministry announced.

The European Medicines Agency will decide "whether and how the new information will affect the authorization of the vaccine"

French pharmaceutical firm Sanofi announced Friday the launch of human trials of its second Covid-19 vaccine. Sanofi and the US-based company Translate Bio are developing the vaccine based on messenger RNA (mRNA) technology.

Sanofi's Chief Executive Paul Hudson told French newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche last month that the vaccine "will not be ready this year."

The company's first vaccine, developed with GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), is still in the testing phase. Both companies are attempting to revive their development after earlier tests showed in December, a low immune response in older adults.

Prime Minister Jean Castex said on Thursday that France will have enough Coronavirus vaccines doses to vaccinate over 30 million people (two-thirds of the population) by this summer. The aim is to vaccinate 10 million people by mid-April and 20 million by mid-May as "deliveries of doses to France will increase in the coming weeks."

“Between January and February, we received seven million doses of all vaccines. In March, we should receive 22 million doses, three times as many. We can't vaccinate everyone right away. You will still have to be patient but don't have any doubt - you will be vaccinated,” he said.

France has lifted the age restriction of the Oxford/AstraZeneca Coronavirus vaccine. The vaccine will now be offered to "people aged 50 and above who have comorbidities such as diabetes, high blood pressure or a history of cancer can be vaccinated with AstraZeneca, including those aged 65 to 74."

“The Haute Autorité de Santé now considers as of today that all three vaccines that we have in France have a remarkable efficacy to protect people against the risk of severe forms of Covid-19,” Health minister Olivier Véran said.

The former French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, was found guilty of having tried to obtain confidential information about him from a magistrate, and to obtain a dismissal in an older case.

He has been sentenced to 3 years in prison (1 year custodial and 2 non-custodial).

He can still appeal against this conviction.

Prime Minister Jean Castex said that B117 (the UK strain) now accounts for about half of people infected with Covid-19 in France". France is considering stricter measures for affected areas, including weekend lockdowns for Paris and 19 other departments.