French President Emmanuel Macron is ordering citizens to stay at home for at least 15 days amid the coronavirus pandemic, declaring the country to be "at war."
In an address on Monday, Macron said that beginning at noon on Tuesday, French citizens must remain in their homes except for essential activities, including shopping for groceries, The New York Times reports.
"We are at war," he said. "The enemy is invisible and it requires our general mobilization."
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
During this time, Macron said people should only make necessary trips outside in a "disciplined fashion" while keeping their distance from others, per The Hill.
"We must all limit the number of people with who we're in contact with every single day," Macron said. "Scientists say so, that's the absolute priority."
Those who do not adhere to the new restrictions will face a fine of up to 135 euros, Al Jazeera reports. France had previously closed non-essential businesses, but The New York Times reported that "Parisians took the French government's partial lockdown measures in stride on Sunday, half shrugging off the coronavirus threat and only limiting their normal weekend's activities."
And on Monday, French health official Jerome Salomon warned that "a lot of people have not understood that they need to stay at home, and this low level at which people have adhered means that we are not succeeding in curbing the outbreak of the epidemic."
Continue reading for free
We hope you're enjoying The Week's refreshingly open-minded journalism.
Subscribed to The Week? Register your account with the same email as your subscription.