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PARIS – French President Emmanuel Macron has been diagnosed with Covid-19, the Elysee Palace announced on Thursday. In a statement, the French government said the infection was found by PCR test after the president showed the first symptoms on Wednesday night. He will be isolated for seven days, as determined by local health guidelines, and will remain in charge of the country, exercising his functions remotely.
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According to the Presidency, Macron, 42, “most likely” contracted the disease at the European summit on 9-10 this month in Brussels. The government is getting in touch with the people it was with recently. The president attended a lunch with 20 parliamentarians on Tuesday and a dinner with lawmakers yesterday.
Details of Macron’s health status have not been released, but French channel BFMTV says the symptoms are not severe. The French first lady, Brigitte, is also isolated, but has no symptoms and today a test was performed that was negative.
Macron’s diagnosis caused an isolating domino effect among other European leaders the Frenchman met with in recent days. On Wednesday, Macron met with Portuguese Prime Minister António Costa, who was visiting Paris. Lisbon announced that on Thursday the prime minister did a test that came back negative, but was preemptively quarantined.
See leaders around the world who have contracted Covid-19.
Three other officials who went into isolation were the Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, the President of the European Council, Charles Michel, and the Secretary General of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), Ángel Gurría. The three met with Macron on Monday at a luncheon to celebrate the organization’s 60th anniversary. According to the government of Madrid, its prime minister has carried out a negative test today, but will remain in isolation until at least the 24th.
At lunch, Macron was filmed and photographed shaking Gurría’s hand and giving him a hug, and patting Sánchez and Michel on the shoulders and back. Until recently, he was in the habit of greeting people he met with a distant greeting.
Last week, Macron participated in the European Union summit, a meeting in which the bloc finally managed to unlock its multi-year budget and post-pandemic reconstruction fund. Of the 27 EU leaders, only two were absent: Estonian Prime Minister Jüri Ratas and Croatian Andrej Plenkovic.
The German government said Chancellor Angela Merkel tested negative for the virus after the summit and that she wore a face mask throughout the event. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said she has no plans to isolate herself as she has not had close contact with the French president. Ireland’s Prime Minister Micheal Martin said he took the test today and it came back negative.
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Boris, Trump, Bolsonaro
Macron joins a growing list of heads of government who have also contracted Covid-19. The first of them was British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who spent three nights in an intensive care unit after becoming infected in March. The presidents of the United States, Donald Trump, and Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernández, also needed to be hospitalized after developing more severe conditions of the disease. Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune has been in a hospital in Germany for two months recovering from the virus.
President Jair Bolsonaro, Belarusian Alexander Lukashenko, Polish Andzej Duda, then Acting President of Bolivia Jeanine Áñez, and Guatemalan Alejandro Giammattei were also infected, presenting milder symptoms or suffering from asymptomatic conditions. Princes Carlos, of the United Kingdom, and Alberto and Monaco, also contracted the new coronavirus.
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Prime Minister Ambrose Dlamini of Eswatini (formerly Swaziland) died on Monday, four weeks after being diagnosed. Former French President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing also died on the last day 2 as a result of Covid-19.
Other public engagements on Macron’s agenda last week included a four-hour debate at a climate convention with dozens of people on Monday, in which the president remained masked, and a meeting with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. . On Wednesday, he led a cabinet meeting.
Curfew
French Prime Minister Jean Castex, who shows no symptoms, was immediately quarantined. The prime minister was expected to present mass vaccination plans in the country this Thursday, which is due to start later this month, but was replaced by Health Minister Olivier Véran. House Speaker Richard Ferrand is also in isolation.
Covid-19 cases in France, one of the countries most affected during the first wave, have been increasing since August, with the end of quarantines at the beginning of the year. In October, however, the new diagnoses soared, prompting the government to impose new restrictions.
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The measures managed to reduce the record of new daily cases from 50 thousand to 10,000, a level still high and similar to the worst moment of the first wave. Diagnoses, however, grew again in early December: 18,254 new infections were registered this Thursday, the highest number since November 20.
Restrictions in force since October 30 were partially eased this week, but the government announced a new curfew between 8 pm and 6 am the following day. Starting Tuesday, the measure will include until New Year’s Eve, the only exception being Christmas Eve.
According to Castex, this is necessary to prevent a new outbreak caused by the Christmas season. The museums, theaters and cinemas, which were due to reopen on December 15, will be closed for at least another three weeks. Since February, Covid-19 has infected 2.4 million people in France, with 59,400 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University.
