Barcelona still in turmoil

Florence Siguret really thought she would see the end of the tunnel this summer. A tourist guide in Barcelona for six years, the Frenchwoman has seen her booking book fill up again since the spring:

“The French are really in the majority there, at the moment, in terms of tourists in Barcelona, ​​and this since May, since the long bridges of Ascension and May 8, we feel that the French are regaining possession of the city.”

The French are the first foreigners to have returned en masse to Barcelona.

Florence Siguret

And since the statements this Thursday, July 8 by Clément Beaune, the Secretary of State for European Affairs, encouraging his compatriots to avoid Spain and Portugal if possible this summer, due to the strong progression of the Delta variant of Covid-19, it’s the cold shower:

“We had the impression that everything was restarting, the sites were reopening. I had more and more requests, a bit like before. And there, it seems that it will stop again.

screw turn

Because the increase in contamination is very real in the country. The Delta variant mainly affects young people, a population that is poorly vaccinated and four times more contaminated than the average. In 15 days, the cases have been multiplied by 10 in Barcelona.

After three weeks of opening, the authorities have already decided the day before yesterday to close the discotheques of Catalonia this weekend, and Florence Siguret does not exclude new turns of the screw, such as restoring the wearing of the mask outside:

For the moment, we do not know if, locally, we will have other restrictions in terms of mobility, access to certain leisure activities or to restaurants. It’s true that it’s also something that tourists look for when they come to Barcelona.

Florence Siguret

Due to the health situation, the Barcelona City Council calls on the population in particular not to go to the beaches, even if the coast is not officially closed.

Go back

Florence Siguret believes that the authorities lifted the restrictions too quickly. “We already had the news of this Delta variant that was coming. And yet, we continued to relax, to give more freedom, to return more and more to a somewhat normal life while we had this threat, certainly distant, but which was getting closer and closer to us. There, now, we will have to go back because we were a little too fast.”

La Française has always taken care to maintain barrier gestures:

“Since, locally, we have been authorized to remove our mask outside, I have always kept it on in the visits that I offer, because I consider that it is really the most important and that I prefer to practice my profession in complete safety in all cases.”

Visiting Madrid the day before yesterday, the head of French diplomacy, Jean-Yves Le Drian, calmed things down, calling on French people who want to spend their holidays in Spain to be vaccinated but carefully avoiding advising them not to go there. .

Write to him: [email protected]

Go further

Find this chronicle on the site, the app and in the international mobility magazine “Français à l’étranger.fr”