CURFEWS IN EUROPE: AT 6PM, LIFE STOPS
Overnight curfews have become the norm in Europe, but 6pm to 6am lockdown in 25 regions of France is the most restrictive
AForget about any after-work socialising with friends, afterschool clubs for children or doing any evening shopping beyond quick trips for essentials. Police on patrol demand valid reasons from people seen out and about.
s the wan winter sun sets over France’s Champagne region, the countdown clock kicks in. Labourers stop pruning the vines as the light fades at about 4.30pm, leaving them 90 minutes to come in from the cold, change out of their work clothes, hop in their cars and zoom home before a 6pm coronavirus curfew.
Forget about any after-work socialising with friends, afterschool clubs for children or doing any evening shopping beyond quick trips for essentials. Police on patrol demand valid reasons from people seen out and about. For those without them, the threat of mounting fines for curfew-breakers is increasingly making life outside of the weekends all work and no play.
“At 6pm, life stops,” says Champagne producer Alexandre Prat.
Creeping curfews
Trying to fend off the need for a third nationwide lockdown that would further dent Europe’s second-largest economy and put more jobs in danger, France is instead opting for creeping curfews. Big chunks of eastern France, including most of its regions that border Belgium, Germany, Switzerland and Italy, face 6pm-to-6am restrictions on movement.
The rest of France could quickly follow suit, losing two extra hours of liberty that have been just enough for residents to maintain bare-bones social lives.
The village where retiree Jerome Brunault lives alone in the Burgundy wine region is also in one of the 6pm curfew zones. The 67-year-old says his solitude weighs more heavily without the opportunity for early evening drinks, nibbles and chats with friends, the socalled “apero” get-togethers so beloved by the French that were hurried but still feasible when curfew started two hours later.
“With the 6pm curfew, we cannot go to see friends for a drink anymore,’’ Brunault said. “I now spend my days not talking to anyone except for the baker and some people by phone.”
Prime Minister Jean Castex could soon announce a curfew extension as well as other restrictions, to fight the virus in a country that has seen over 69,000 confirmed virus deaths.
The new norm
Overnight curfews have become the norm in swaths of Europe but the 6pm-to-6am curfew in 25 regions of eastern France is the most restrictive anywhere in the European Union’s 27 nations. Others countries’ curfews all start later and often finish earlier.
The curfew in Italy runs from 10pm to 5am, as does the Friday night to Sunday morning curfew in Latvia. Regions of Belgium that speak French have a 10pm to 6am curfew while in Belgium’s Dutch-speaking region, the hours are midnight to 5am.
People out between 8pm and 5am in Hungary must be able to show police written proof from their employers that they are either working or commuting.