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France / Covid-19 : Emmanuel Macron tests positive for coronavirus


French President Emmanuel Macron has tested positive for Covid-19 according to the the French Presidency on Thursday.


The Elysee palace said he was tested after showing early symptoms.


This comes bearly two days after the country returned from a more than one month lockdown. At the very beginning of November, the whole of France went into the second lockdown since the outbreak of the pandemic back in February 2020 in Europe. Despite the lockdown, the internal borders with the EU were kept open, while the external borders were closed.


French authorities replaced the latter with a nightly curfew, keeping several types of venues closed in order to avoid another spike up in the cases of COVID-19 in the country.


The French Prime Minister Jean Castex announced Thursday that the health situation in France has improved considerably in recent weeks, still noting that the second wave of the pandemic had yet to end.


With the lockdown put to an end, both international travel and travel to different regions of France will again be possible for non-essential reasons, so tourists and second homeowners can again visit France, and people can travel to see relatives and friends in other parts of the country or other countries.


Macron while continuing to work and carry out his activities remotely will now isolate for seven days.


It was not immediately clear what contact tracing efforts were in progress, but palace officials added he was trying to assess where he may have contracted the virus.


Mr Macron was due to visit Lebanon next week on 22 December. The trip has now been cancelled, a spokeswoman said.

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