Coronavirus France: Elderly woman fined for lockdown form error

 A French court has ruled that an elderly woman diagnosed with dementia must pay a fine of €166 (£151; $201) for having put the wrong date on her form for leaving home during lockdown.

 

Her daughter had appealed against the original €135 fine imposed during a police check in April.

In France's coronavirus lockdown, a downloadable form has to be filled in whenever a person wants to leave home.

The woman, 73, was stopped while out shopping in Luxeuil, eastern France.

France Bleu news reports that when police booked her they did not record that she was speaking incoherently. She was going to a supermarket about 800m - about half a mile - from her home.

 

Her daughter drew the local mayor's attention to the incident, saying her mother had been having psychiatric monitoring for Alzheimer's for five years.

The mayor then advised the police to waive the fine, but they did not do so. A prosecutor had also pleaded for the fine to be waived, but the court in nearby Vesoul decided the fine must stay.

The fine dates back to France's first lockdown, in March-April. Now France is in a second lockdown, imposed because cases surged in the autumn after a summer relaxation of the rules, like the pattern in much of Europe.

France does not plan to start vaccinating people until January, unlike the UK.

 

What are France's current restrictions?

 

France's second national lockdown was imposed in late October.

President Emmanuel Macron said restrictions would start being eased from 28 November, in a phased plan. But most lockdown measures remain in place until 15 December.

 

 

On 15 December lockdown is to be replaced by a nationwide curfew from 21:00 to 07:00. It will not apply on Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve, however.

That easing is now in some doubt, as the latest Covid figures are not encouraging.

On Sunday there were officially 11,022 new infections over the previous 24 hours - way above the target of 5,000, set for the planned easing on 15 December.

The number of Covid patients in intensive care is above 3,200 - but the target is 3,000 maximum.

The French death toll in the pandemic is now 55,155. As part of the restrictions:

• People can only leave home for essential trips such as going to work or school, taking local exercise (maximum three hours), medical appointments, family care arrangements, essential shopping
• Shops and hairdressers are open, but limiting customer numbers
• Schools are open except for lycées (ages 15-18), universities are only doing remote learning; all pupils aged six and above must wear masks
• Restaurants and other hospitality venues will not reopen until at least 20 January; entertainment venues may reopen on 15 December, depending on the infection figures then
• Travel between regions of France is banned unless it is essential - this applies also to foreign travel.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-55215371 

 

 French police require people to show permits when they leave home