Lockdown conditions in France

[CroissantsAtDawn]

Ive seen lots of threads with people worrying about lockdown.and how they would cope/ it would be enforced.

Last night, following the President's announcement I received a text message from the government confirming the lockdown for 15 days and linking to a site with details.

From 12 today we are only allowed out to go to work if work from home isnt possible, buy groceries, see a doctor, help elderly/vulnerable family in need (with reminder about barrier actions), to let a dog do its business or for individual physical activity close to home.

Each time you need a paper dated and signed explaining why you are out. Infringements are fined 38-135 euros. The paper can be downloaded and printed, shown on your phone or just hand written.

100 000 police and army personnel are being deployed to enforce the conditions.

No mention of how children can exercise. Just that parks etc are closed and there should be no family or friends gathering.

We are going to test going out early for run with 1 DC each and hope that is allowed in "individual activity". If its not I ll stand on the doorstep and watch them run up and down the road (2 highly active boys living in a flat....)

All our local supermarkets are so full of flour like there's some kind of national baking competition coming up. I heard there had been a shortage at some point, but I sure haven't seen it.

How are there going to be a maximum of 15 children per class, in that case?

In REP+ schools, where most of these kids will be, CP and CE1 classes are already capped at twelve. I don't know how they'll manage in the other years.

I've said this before but it's worth saying again. Across the road from me is a family of five, illegal immigrants, living in a single basement room. No kitchen facilities, they use a gas canister to cook (and had a small fire last year as a result). Mum is on the game, no idea what dad does but it'll be cash in hand. The kids are no longer getting free school meals and the parents are spending hours every day sorting out aide alimentaire. Our town has literally hundreds of families in situations like that, and you can multiply that by many thousands across Seine St Denis. A six year old in a town not far anway was beaten to death by the abusive father who was "home schooling" him for not concentrating on his work.

School is literally a life saver for a LOT of kids, short or long term. I agere that opening them has to be a priority.

How are you and DD French? You both had covid 19 are you OK now? Was it awful?
I'm sorry about the orals. I do kholles for Agro Veto and heard Monday that the oral exams were all cancelled which is good for some students and terrible for others like your DD.

Wow Burney, that gives a different perspective indeed. I have never thought of our village as wealthy or privileged, but compared to that situation, we all certainly are.

And all government papers I've read from various countries state that children are not high spreaders either, so opening schools should not increase the virus circulation considerably.

Blanquer has suggested half or even quarter groups and a range of activities, if mairies and associations can provide facilities and staff:

Pour permettre la constitution de petits groupes d’élèves, des alternances pourront être organisées entre : l’accueil en classe, l’enseignement à distance, et la pratique d’activités avec le protocole SSCC ou "2S2C" : Sport, Santé, Civisme et Culture, en lien avec des associations notamment.

My impression is very much that they will focus on those most at risk of missing huge chunks of school and try to get them back in class and in some form of structured environment, while those who were more or less managing with online work will not be pressured to attend. I can't see it being obligatory for all, TBH.

It's so hard for families round here. Our town is a funny mix of lower middle class first-time buyers priced out of Montreuil and Pantin, the occasional bobo family like us, and desperate poverty. Every child in my son's CP class has French as an additional language and a lot of the parents will have low reading literacy in French because the home language is Tamil or Turkish or Arabic or Romanian or Wolof or whatever. And heaven only knows how the dozens of "Syrian refugee" immigrant families we see begging by the roads every week are coping.

We have a handful of immigrants (mostly middle class skilled cross-border workers) and then people whose families have lived in the same village since the time began, are all related to each other and have all their extended families living in the village, all grandparents and uncles and cousins. Of course, their childcare needs are different from us immigrants who have no family around.

Not sure how many of you would need this, but we have used the Valwin app to get our regular prescription medicines from the pharmacie. We just had to scan in the prescriptions and they were all ready to collect when DH went in. No need for CV or anything.

oh good to know, thanks.

"In REP+ schools, where most of these kids will be, CP and CE1 classes are already capped at twelve."

There are no such schools or classes down here near us. Both of our DC's classes have over 20 children.

A French friend who is a CP teacher says that in her experience, only about 5% of children are capable of following online work without parents sitting next to them the whole time.

The schools do need to open, I know, but nobody knows what will then happen to the parents who get sick, and their DC. We have no family here. What would happen to our children if both DH & I are in the hospital for weeks?

DS2 is in CM2. His teacher sent him home with a bulging folder of worksheets and all his textbooks, and she set work every day by email, along with a devinette/charade and a challenge each week (build a vehicle out of recycled packaging/build as high a tower as you can...we took photos and they are in an online gallery set up by one the teachers in his school).
He had reading comp, grammar, maths, history and geography. It did require input from me, but he could do a fair bit alone and then I went over it with him. If it means other kids who don't have teachers for parents and are living in overcrowded caravans/flats with no tech can get a bit more teaching, I think we could carry on like that after may 11th.
It's not ideal; it means I work after bedtime a lot, but it's possible.

Cote
My greatest fear is that I will get ill and be unable to look after my DC. I refused to teach my last day of classes in the week before lockdown because of this, and it still worries me. There is no one nearby to step in if I'm incapacitated.

I don’t think they can select or identify the children who “need” to be back in school and prioritise them - it would be too stigmatising. So I assume that they will split the class, half are In school one week while they others stay home. Then swap. That way, all children are in school at least 50% of the time. In their week at home, rather than being left to their own devices, parents will have to prove somehow that the children are following the curriculum. Who follows up if they are not, I have no idea. In the UK Individual class teachers and social workers are trying to follow up known vulnerable children by telephone, and email to the parents - but they say it’s piecemeal at best: they have no way of knowing what’s happening at home or whether the child / parent are telling the truth.

DS is in CP and definitely not in that 5%. I need to sit and check and nag the entire time. Plus do my own job, of course.

Watchagotcha Not necessarily stigmatizing if you do it by type of school. All REP plus schools could go back for instance. I’m no expert but I imagine such schools are not equally distributed geographically: By their nature they are in deprived areas.

I just spoke to our maternelle headmistress and she says there is no way they can guarantee hygiene measures and she has no idea how they’re going to do it…

I think this situation will highlight how poor hygiene is in many French schools. As for university campuses...

La rentrée scolaire du 11 mai sera « progressive, concertée avec les élus locaux ». Cette rentrée se fera quoi qu’il en soit sur la base du volontariat des parents, « sans obligation de retour à l’école », précise l’Élysée

Le Monde just now...

@Auld

It’s dire isn’t it? At DS maternelle, they had two cloth handtowels hanging all day, to be used by the whole school. No other way to dry hands. And the student toilets at the college / lycée where I work - no soap, no drying facilités . At DS college they don’t even have paper in the cubicles (because some bampots will use it to block the toilets), just a big shared roll outside.

OTOH I have a nurse friend telling that it’s important to send back children from healthy, no vulnerable members, families because that’s the only way to get towards collective immunity. That we, the healthy ones, get it at a rate which doesn’t overwhelm the system,, while protecting the more vulnerable.

C’est compliqué...

" it’s important to send back children from healthy, no vulnerable members, families because that’s the only way to get towards collective immunity. "

That is clearly the objective, but I'm just not sure about taking one for the team just yet, when we don't know the risk factors for sure. There seem to be a lot of young people with no underlying conditions in ICU units around the world atm.

Are they really numerically though, statistically speaking? Compared to young people dying from the flu or measles for instance?

Whereabouts are you Auld?

My GS child needs to be set off with work then gets on with it. Max an hour a day.

My CE2 child was awful the first few weeks (had to sit next to him and cajole/threaten him the entire time) but amazingly now I give him the list of work to do and he pretty much gets on with it. He has at least 4 solid hours a day: grammar, vocab, comprehension, writing, maths, geometry, history, geography, poetry and English. Also meant to do sport and catechism and singing but those tend to get ignored. He also has reading competitions, an online grammar website, a blog to show his drawings/photos of the weekly defi/share recipes etc. Oh and he gets online tests and this week the maitresse has started online lessons via zoom...

Yes we are exhausted !

Oh and previously to the wall of flour in monoprix I couldn't find any in 5 different supermarkets for over 3 weeks...

CM2 - needs started, could do in his own but prefers when DH or i sit with him and help puzzle out the Lafouine ;-) mostly it’s spelling, grammar, comprehension and maths, plus lots of history /geography /science videos to watch and write resumes for.

5ème... needs help working out what he needs to do (bloody useless not fit for purpose Pronote) but then gets on with it. Then needs checked to make sure he actually did it:but maybe that’s just us.

@MadameF I'm recovered now thanks. It took 3 weeks though which is the longest I've ever had off work baring maternity leave. I didn't have too bad a case, only one day when I couldn't breathe properly and started to get scared. The rest of the time was headache, chest ache and generally feeling ill. It comes and goes in waves, so you think you are better and get up to do something, then realise it was a bad idea. My dr phoned every couple of days to check up on us which was really good.

I do hope it means Ive got immunity. Dd3 won't be going back til the 25th May (4ieme) but she is very ebullient and there is no way she will keep to the socially distancing rules. As others have said the facilities for hand washing etc at college are practically zero. I'm also unsure how the transport scolaire is going to work. Our bus is full every morning and I don't suppose there are enough busses or drivers in the department to put 2 busses instead of one on every route. About 60-70% of college take a bus so they are going to have to work something out.