France set to enter third lockdown amid coronavirus surge

Amid rising cases of coronavirus in the country, France is set to enter the third lockdown beginning Saturday.

The decision has come a few days after the French president Emmanuel Macron had hinted against imposing a lockdown. However, after heavy criticism, the government decided to impose another lockdown to contain the widespread of the deadly virus.

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Macron is also hoping to utilise this time to vaccinate as many people as possible. “We will do everything to vaccinate, vaccinate, vaccinate! Without rest, without holidays. Saturday and Sunday just like in the week,” he said.

He has also claimed that France will have caught up with the UK on the number of people being vaccinated against the deadly coronavirus.

"In a few weeks we will have completely caught up with the British, who will meanwhile be increasingly dependent on us to vaccinate their population," he told a local newspaper.

The order of lockdown came a little after Macron announced a temporary closure of schools in the country.

"We have adopted a strategy since the beginning of the year that aims to contain the epidemic without shutting ourselves in," he said.

On Wednesday, while addressing the nation with the concern of rising cases, Macron announced the tightening of restrictions in form of school closure, travel restrictions across the country and closure of non-essential shops.

Earlier, Macron had said that by not imposing lockdown, "we gained precious weeks of liberty, weeks of learning for our children, we allowed hundreds of thousands of workers to keep their head above water, without losing control of the epidemic".