France will block entry to UK tourists, tightening its border restrictions in an effort to slow the spread of the Omicron coronavirus variant.
The decision came as EU leaders expressed heightened alarm over the renewed surge in Covid-19 cases and tried to maintain a common approach to travel within the bloc.
Travel from the UK to France will be largely limited to French nationals, residents and their families, although exceptions have been made for students and some professions, such as doctors, which have a work-related reason to enter the country.
The prime minister’s office said the curbs would apply from midnight on Friday.
The emergence of Omicron, which was identified by South African scientists in November, has led many countries to impose travel restrictions. Omicron has dozens of mutations that scientists expect make it more transmissible than earlier variants and more likely to evade the immune protection provided by vaccines or previous infection.
In a summit on Thursday in Brussels EU leaders differed over how to handle rules within the union after Italy and Greece said travellers would have to show proof of a negative PCR test — even if they are travelling from within the EU.
The move has sparked frustration in some other parts of the EU, where capitals worry that it could damage efforts to maintain a common system to Covid-era travel inside the union. Leaders from countries including Belgium and Estonia warned against unilateral measures in response to the Omicron upsurge, diplomats said.
Ursula von der Leyen, European Commission president, said she believed passengers flying into the EU should present a negative PCR test before they board, and that a test may be merited on arrival as well. The commission will soon present proposals for the validity of the union’s vaccine certificate to be set at nine months following the initial shots.
France has clamped down ahead of the Christmas travel season. “The challenge is to slow the spread of Omicron to allow as much time as possible to do booster shots,” said government spokesman Gabriel Attal on BFM TV.
Covid-19 tests must be taken less than 24 hours before departure, rather than 48 as at present, and those who arrive from the UK must self-isolate for seven days, reduced to two days if they test negative in France. An online registration system will be used to track those arriving and to submit test results.
In the UK, Omicron has been spreading rapidly and could be infecting 200,000 people a day, according to an estimate from the UK Health Security Agency, dwarfing the number of confirmed cases identified by sequencing. The HSA said a record 88,376 new Covid-19 cases were reported on Thursday.
France, which does much less genetic sequencing of variants than Britain, has only identified roughly 240 cases of Omicron, although health experts expect the number is probably higher. More than 95 per cent of infections in the country are still with the Delta variant, according to public health officials, but that is expected to change in coming weeks.
Even without the impact of Omicron, France has been experiencing a surge of infections in the past six weeks to reach about 45,000 per day, on a seven-day rolling average. Hospitals and health workers are stretched, with more than 1,000 Covid patients being admitted daily and predictions for use of intensive care beds to be close to capacity by the end of the month unless more are added.
The government has responded by accelerating the booster programme, closing nightclubs and tightening protocols in schools. But it has stopped short of imposing curfews or lockdowns. In a television interview on Wednesday night, President Emmanuel Macron forecast that there would be “very strong pressure on our hospitals” between Christmas and the new year.
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December 17, 2021 at 01:14AM
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France to block entry to UK tourists as Omicron surges - Financial Times
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