In her article for The Guardian « Thank you Parisians, don’t bring the virus »: plea from rural France published the 18th of March, Kim Willsher, an English journalist based in Paris, describes how icy « rural » people are at the idea of Parisians invading their cities and especially islands during the coronavirus crisis.
« I fled Paris like in 1940 » is what a man said to the Ouest France newspaper after he left the capital of France the 16th of March, when Emmanuel Macron, the French President, announced a « total lockdown » within the country due to the coronavirus. Indeed, before the strict application of the lockdown, 1 million of Parisians (1 for 5) left their city to reach their second or family homes.
Three main reproaches against the ephemeral migrants are that they empty local stores and supermarkets, as well as they risk to travel with the virus, which, before they arrived, for example did not yet reach Belle-Ile-en-Mer, the Breton island. Now, around 30 people are suspected of having contracted Covid-19. The last reproach is that, if they were to get sick, they would occupy hospital beds in medically ill-equipped areas.
Many parallels are made with World War II, when Parisians massively fled a nazi-invaded Paris for rural France. At that time too, they were not warmly welcomed by their compatriots, who did not demonstrate the best solidarity nor hospitality. But at that time, Parisians fled war. Even if Mr Macron declared several times « we are in war » during his TV intervention, now people flee their apartments for bigger houses, for a garden and for the sea. They do not flee a conflict as much as they seek comfort, endangering thousands of people by doing so.
Above all, this crisis reveals a growing gap and incomprehension between social classes: only people who own second homes were able to leave Paris, claiming that they could not possibly spend the lockdown in their 40m2 apartment for two, when poor people are spending it in in much smaller social housing apartments with their entire families.
