Manama: At a time when the majority of European countries are reopening their borders to travellers from third countries, France has decided to expand the list of countries, arrivals from which are subject to stricter restrictions when reaching mainland France, starting from May 17.
According to a press release of the French government, Bahrain, Colombia, Costa Rica and Uruguay have been added to the list of COVID-19 high-risk countries, SchengenVisaInfo.com reports.
“While the epidemic situation is improving on the national territory, the spread of the virus in certain countries, and in particular of several variants of interest, have raised the fears of a risk of increased transmissibility or vaccine escape, which requires a strengthening of control measures arrivals from these countries,” the government says announcing the decision.
The list had been established back in April and at first consisted of India, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, and South Africa. Later, on May 8, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Turkey and Pakistan were added to the same list.
At the same time, the ban on arrivals from these areas remains in force, which means that persons eligible to enter France are only the following: French nationals; spouses and children of French nationals; nationals of the European Union having their main residence in France and nationals of a third country having their main residence in France
Arrivals from the countries in the high-risk list have to present the negative results of a negative COVID-19 test taken within the last 36 hours when reaching France, instead of 72 as it is for arrivals from other countries. They will also be subject to a ten days quarantine period, decided by prefectural decree and accompanied by restrictions on leaving times from the place of quarantine.
“A verification system is set up, before boarding and then on arrival, of the existence of a quarantine place adapted to health requirements and quarantine compliance checks are carried out at home by the police or the national gendarmerie, accompanied by increased fines in the event of non-compliance with isolation,” the government further notes.
Last week, SchengenVisaInfo.com reported that by May 6, the country’s police had conducted 2,479 quarantine checks and fined 141 persons who violated the rules of quarantine upon arrival. Data shows that so far, about 4000 persons who have reached France from countries on the high-risk list have experienced police quarantine checks.
France is currently the fourth most affected country worldwide by the Coronavirus, with 5,877,787 cases registered so far, 107,616 of which have resulted in death, and 653,466 are active.
Currently, France has in place more relaxed restrictions for only a few non-EU countries, including Australia, the UK and New Zealand.
