Macron Outlines French Re-Opening Plan Despite Hospital Pressure

A closed restaurant terrace overlooking the Mediterranean Sea on Prado beach in Marseille, France, on April 25.

Photographer: Jeremy Suyker/Bloomberg
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President Emmanuel Macron said restrictions on businesses and a nationwide curfew will be relaxed from May 19 as he outlines steps to reopen France amid an accelerating vaccination campaign.

With his job on the line in elections in just a year, Macron is under pressure to ease curbs. Yet while that will bring some relief to a pandemic-weary country, it’s also a gamble. Hospitals remain under intense strain and France is still trailing the U.K. and Germany in the number of vaccine doses administered.