Anne Hidalgo, the mayor of Paris since 2014. – Aurore Marechal / POOL / SIPA
The mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo asked this Wednesday for the closure of schools in the capital, in view of the “very serious” health situation and the “very great disorganization” in the establishments. “There is a need to take a measure that slows down”, she estimated on BFMTV and RMC, at two and a half weeks of school holidays in Ile-de-France.
Covid-19: Anne Hidalgo (@Anne_Hidalgo) declares that 850 classes are closed and 20,000 students are not in class in Paris this Wednesday pic.twitter.com/PCl9S3Q1BB
– BFMTV (@BFMTV) March 31, 2021
“I think schools should be closed because it is a very big disorganization today”, she argued, indicating that “about 20,000 students” are today “not in class either because ‘they are sick, either because the classes are closed,’ there are 850 of them. The incidence rate of Covid-19 among 15-19 year olds is 850 per 100,000 in Paris, he said. she also clarified, recalling that the situation is “very serious” in Ile-de-France, with “1,500 people in intensive care” in the hospital.
“Another very, very hard blow for the economy, for many people”
She admitted that an early closure of schools, with parents forced to keep children at home, would be “another very, very hard blow to the economy, for a lot of people.” She called for this measure to be accompanied by more teleworking, because “we are not yet at the maximum of what we can do” on this subject, and to “absolutely accelerate” on vaccination.
While a defense council is held in the morning, before the Council of Ministers, then a televised intervention by Emmanuel Macron at 8 p.m., the socialist mayor of Paris ruled that “if we are told that this is the last blow collar, the French will be ready to do so. But it must be done by informing “, in” transparency “, she said to the executive.