France cracks down on movement

PARIS: A man has been jailed in France for repeatedly violating strict anti-coronavirus lockdown rules, which have seen 359,000 fines issued countrywide as the outbreak death toll continues to mount, authorities said Wednesday.

Police Minister Christophe Castaner warned residents to write off any travel plans for school holidays starting this weekend, promising to punish any unwarranted movement as the country continues to evacuate dozens of critically ill patients from hospitals in overstretched areas of the country.

The Ile-de-France region, with Paris at its core, saw its first evacuations Wednesday as the outbreak which started in the east of France takes an ever-heavier toll on the capital. Twenty-four patients were sent from Paris to Brittany in northern France in the morning on a high-speed train, fully equipped as a hospital on tracks, with 12 others to follow on a second train later.

A third of the 499 deaths registered in France in the previous 24 hours had been from Ile-de-France, the government said, with the countrywide death toll now at 3,523. Only deaths in hospital are counted towards the official tally, which excludes people who passed away in old age facilities or at home.

To date, the government has evacuated nearly 300 patients from hospitals in hard-hit areas of the country to lesser burdened ones, and some to Germany, Switzerland and Luxembourg. Austria said Wednesday it would take three patients from eastern France.