taggit Summary
Even though President Emmanuel Macron pledged that this would be France’s last national lockdown before life returns to normal, there was no clear light at the end of the tunnel: Infections are soaring; France’s total deaths from the epidemic is nearing 100,000; and, like in the rest of the European Union, progress on the vaccination campaign remains painfully slow. Like many others in the train station, Bougrel said she was disappointed by the slow vaccine rollout that has plagued France since late December, adding that she knew only one person who had been vaccinated. In a nationally televised address watched live Wednesday by about half of France’s population of 67 million, Macron announced yet another national lockdown after months of resisting advice from public health researchers and pressure from political rivals. Antoine Levy, a French economist and doctoral candidate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said that France invested heavily in enforcing its lockdowns, putting millions of workers on paid furloughs and gradually tightening restrictions on people’s movements but very little in developing vaccines.