PARIS (Reuters) – French President Emmanuel Macron on Monday ordered stringent restrictions on people’s movement to slow the spread of the coronavirus, and said the army would be drafted in to help move the sick to hospitals.
France had already shut down restaurants and bars, closed schools and put ski resorts off limits, but Macron said measures unprecedented in peacetime were needed as the number of infected people doubled every three days and deaths spiraled higher.
In a somber address to the nation, the president said that from Tuesday midday (1100 GMT) people should stay at home unless it was to buy groceries, travel to work, exercise or for medical care.
Anyone flouting the restrictions, in place for at least the next two weeks, would be punished.
“I know what I am asking of you is unprecedented but circumstances demand it,” Macron said.
“We’re not up against another army or another nation. But the enemy is right there: invisible, elusive, but it is making progress.”
Some 100,000 police will be deployed to enforce the lockdown, Interior Minister Christophe Castaner said. Checkpoints will be set up nationwide and those on the move will have to be able to justify their journey on a printed ministry document, pedestrians included, he said.
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