French president Emmanuel Macron announced a country-wide lockdown beginning on Tuesday, March 17. All non-necessary shops, restaurants, schools, etc. had already been closed for a few days. We are only allowed to leave our house for one of seven reasons, and whenever we do so, we need to print and fill out a form explaining the reason for this. As we fill out the form ourselves, we do not need to obtain “permission” from any authority, but this form still effectively limits our movement, thereby limiting social contact and person-to-person transmission.
I am sharing (and translating!) the form we need to fill out for anyone reading this. At the top of the form, we need to write our names, birth date and place, and address. We then need to select one of seven motives for which we are leaving the house:
- Work, when remote work is impossible
- Buying basic necessity goods
- Medical reasons
- Looking after a vulnerable family member
- Exercise/ walking your dog
- For administrative or judicial duties
- As part of a government-sanctioned relief team
We then need to sign the form, along with the date, time, and place at which we left. If any individual is caught outside without a form or disrespecting the rules indicated on the form, they risk incurring a 135€ (146$) fine. To date, 350 000 fines have been issued for disrespecting confinement guidelines.