The news that Emmanuel Macron announced the closure of borders in the EU countries was published by the Russian socio-political and business newspaper Izvestia on March 16, 2020. The French President made a television appealto the nation because of the spread of coronavirus infection.
The Russian media reports that Macron indicated in his message, that the borders of the European Union and the Schengen countries were closed from March 17 for up to 30 days. The French leader noted that the restriction on the movement of people across the country came into force for 15 days.
According to the president’s statement, all reforms were also be suspended in France, including pension reform, which involves the abolition of retirement benefits for many professions, raising the retirement age from 62 to 64 years.
In order to check this information, we visited the Government of France official website.The main page contains basic information about coronavirus infection and measures taken by the government for the safety of citizens. After scrolling downwards, you can see the section «Ressources et contacts utiles» and in the tab «Documents» there is a function «Téléchargez la déclaration du président de la République 16 mars 2020» (download the statement of the President of the Republic of March 16, 2020) . In this statement, the president announced a restriction on the movement of people and the suspension of reforms: «…Dès demain midi et pour 15 jours au moins, nos déplacements seront fortement réduits…», «…Toutes les réformes en cours sont suspendues à commencer par la réforme des retraites…». The following is said about closing the borders: «…pour nous protéger et contenir la dissémination du virus mais aussi préserver nos systèmes de soin, nous avons pris une décision commune en européen : dès demain midi : les frontières à l’entrée de l’Union Européenne et de l’espace Schengen seront fermées. Concrètement, tous les voyages entre les pays non européens et l’Union européenne seront suspendus» (in order to protect us and to restrain the spread of the virus, as well as to preserve our healthcare systems, we made a joint decision in Europe: tomorrow morning: the borders at the entrance to the European Union and the Schengen area will be closed. Specifically, all trips between non-European countries and the European Union will be suspended). The statement did not indicate a deadline for closing the borders up to 30 days, however, information appeared on the website that on March 27, 2020 the Prime Minister announced the extension of restrictive measures for another two weeks, that is, until April 15 using the same rules as currently.
Consequently, we may conclude that the news published by Izvestia newspaperis true.
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Author: Anna Shasheva, South Ural State University, Chelyabinsk, Russia
