Lockdown à la française
Louise McCarthy talks to the Cambridge Language Collective about her experience of returning to France at the height of the pandemic to spend lockdown in Île-de-France and her perspective on the French government’s reaction to Coronavirus.
Anna:
In your opinion, how efficiently did the French government react to the pandemic? And can you tell me a little bit about their first initiative to help control the spread of the disease - was it by asking everybody to wear masks, providing hand sanitizer, or did they just go straight into a nationwide lockdown?
Louise:
I feel like they went straight into lockdown. I was travelling in Switzerland and then I was told that I couldn't go back to my flat in Paris because they had closed the borders. So I had to contact my home school in Cachan, in the suburb of Paris. I asked for them to give me a letter that said that I had to go back to access my books and computer and everything, so I could continue studying. My school responded quite quickly and sent me that letter saying that I had to cross the border and go home. I think I left Switzerland around the 20th of March, and then went straight to my place in Paris which was already in lockdown. So that was a shock to me because in Switzerland, I was in the French speaking part, they didn't have any rules apart from just wearing masks and using hand sanitizer, and even though they did recommend that we respect distancing and sanitizing and everything, there was no full lockdown as there was already in France. It's quite funny because I watched the retransmission of the, I don’t think it's the Genevan Council, but the Swiss Council, and they said, ‘oh, we're not going to be like the French. We're not going to go into lockdown. Don't worry.’
Photograph: Louise McCarthy
Anna:
Could you explain a little bit about the form that French people had to fill out every time that they left the house? Were there regular checks on that and was there a police presence on the streets, asking people for their forms? And then, did people comply, did everybody fill that out every time that they left their house?
Louise:
Yes. So initially, they didn't really have an official form. We just had to write a letter saying that we had to go out and that we left at such-and-such hour. We were allowed to go out for food shopping and for emergencies, for example, if you had a very, very sick relative, and also the pharmacy - very essential stuff. But then we were also allowed to have one hour outside per day, and within a one kilometer perimeter. So I was lucky to have a friend who lives next to my building. We did our hour outside together, but apart and with our letters. [...] I kept erasing the date and hour on my own paper and every day I just changed that, but some people just filled in new forms every day; I didn’t think that was very eco-friendly. [...] I was always very anxious that I would be checked because the police were on the streets, but I was never checked in the two months I spent there. But I know that other people have been checked and got fined rather heavily, so I would not have taken the chance of going out without my form.
Anna:
What was it like experiencing a deserted Île-de France?
Louise:
So the first day I arrived, I went straight into the metro and it was empty. Literally all the little shops were closed, there were two or three beggars walking around and that was it, and probably one or two other travellers heading home. This was very eerie and unusual, considering that Paris is always always busy, and there it was just empty - it felt like a post-apocalyptic movie. I think I did take a picture right when I got into the metro of it being empty and then headed straight home. There were a lot less buses circulating because, well, there were less people travelling, so I had to wait for a while before I got a bus, and then I got home and there was no-one on the streets.
Photograph: Louise McCarthy
Anna:
Has the public's faith in the government changed at all? Do you think that they led by example and showed a good initiative, or do you think that people's faith in them has been damaged?
Louise:
I don't know if it was already damaged or if it just revealed that. But I've seen more and more people saying the government is just useless and they're manipulating us. It was a lot of that. People were pointing out the American response and the Trump-like American response, but I think there was pretty much the same response in France, and from actually a large portion of the population, a surprisingly large part. And so from what I've seen, a lot of people have said, 'Oh, but initially, the government said that masks are inefficient', and then they [the government] said that we have to wear them. So it's a bit like Boris Johnson saying 'Go to work. Don't go to work.' In France it was, 'Wear a mask. Don't wear a mask.' And then eventually it became compulsory and people were like: 'But you just said that we didn't have to wear it?' So I guess people were confused and they probably transformed that into a bit of resentment towards the government not being clear enough.
Anna:
What was the portrayal of the UK's response like in the French media? Did you hear much about how Britain was dealing with the pandemic?
Louise:
I guess that the French were very happy to have a go at the Americans and the British - just because they like to do so. So it was like: 'Oh, look at what Boris Johnson says. And oh, look at what Donald Trump says.' But I think that there was a similar situation at home, and I guess there was that conflict between not liking the government, because not many French people like the French government, and also chauvinistic pride. So there was that conflict between 'we hate our government, but we love France'. So should we criticize it? Or should we praise it? And I don't know, I guess that there was a bit of both.
Photograph: Louise McCarthy
Anna:
Other than your school work, how did you spend your time? I'm quite interested to know if there were any entertainment trends that swept across the country, like, for example, the app House Party, and I know that a lot of people did quizzes in the UK. How did you pass your time?
Louise:
So because I had to prepare for an exam, I had a lot of work, so that was actually a good thing because it kept me busy throughout most of the day. But then there's only so much you can do in terms of work in a day. As I couldn't buy or get any books in, I just spent most of my time watching Netflix. We did use the add-on Netflix Party with a couple of friends and just binge watched lots of absurd films and series. [...] we had to turn to Netflix and other films and entertainment like that because we were stuck in a flat. But my mother and many other people's parents were actually in larger homes with a garden. So my mother just kept gardening all the time because the weather was beautiful during lockdown and you could actually enjoy outside which was nice. She made a lot of changes to the garden. [...] And so yeah, gardening, mainly skyping with us, well, with the rest of the family, also playing games, for example, Pictionary online, we did quite a lot of that. That was very nice.
Anna:
Could you give me one positive, other than the time for your work, that you could take from your time in lockdown?
Louise:
I guess it forced me to be patient because I'm usually someone who can't sit still. And I go out to Paris every day for a walk, shopping, a play, anything. But then I had to just sit still and stay home, so it forced me to be more patient with myself. I'd just try and invent other ways of being dynamic in my small flat.
Anna:
So now, after lockdown, what's the general feeling in France? Are people preparing themselves for a difficult few months?
Louise:
I guess that I noticed a gap between what the media is saying and what the government advise. If you compare that to people's responses, it's actually quite striking because the government says, 'prepare for a second lockdown this might happen before or during Christmas', and from what I've seen people's responses are more like: 'we're sick and tired of lockdown, we do not want another two months like we had during the spring'. People are more and more skeptical about lockdown and its effect, especially psychologically and on elderly people, and most of them just don't want a second lockdown to happen. But it looks like it could happen during the winter, so we'll see how that goes.
