One week into the national coronavirus confinement and parts of rural France are even more eerily quiet than usual.
The A6 Autoroute de Soleil that heads out of Paris to the south-east to join the A7 to the Mediterranean coast, normally a constant stream of traffic and frequently jammed in both directions, is now dotted with an irregular stream of lorries.
Tractors pull off the fields to hog the narrow roads and lanes because they are not expecting to meet any other traffic, forcing the occasional car to swerve; in the streets and shops and supermarkets people are body-swerving to avoid others.
But the demand for physical distance seems to have lessened the psychological space, and as people perform a little dance to put a few more centimetres between each other, many smile apologetically.
Checking out the shops in the region – supermarkets, small superettes and corner shops – what is noticeably absent and markedly different from the scenes we are seeing from the UK is any sense of panic.
Perhaps this is because the shelves are full. There is no shoving or pushing, and looking at shoppers’ trolleys people are not stockpiling. If a crowd of shoppers arrive at the same time, shop staff have begun letting them in one at a time to ensure everyone can keep their distance.
Once inside, many staff are wearing masks and gloves, and makeshift plastic or plexiglass barriers have been hung between the cashiers and customers. In others, shop staff are serving people as normal. Most stores have taped lines on the floor at one-metre distances, and most people queuing are respecting this.
There seems to be plenty of non-perishable food – pasta, rice, bread, tinned and frozen food – piles of fresh fruit and vegetables, more than enough meat and fish, and still lots of toilet paper.
The farmers’ markets went ahead last week but will now need local permission after the French government tightened the confinement rules.
“We’re getting supplies every day,” said the cashier at the local branch of one of France’s main supermarket chains. The small corner shop or épicerie du coin confirmed it was also being regularly supplied.
This is not the case everywhere, and particularly not in Paris, where the shelves of some food shops – often those at the cheaper end of the market – have been stripped bare.
The town of Joigny – population 9,850 at the last count – is typical of what is called la France périphérique – the belt of territory between city suburbs and the deep countryside outside major cities, in this case Paris.
The station car park is normally packed with the cars of those commuting for work to the capital. After the local military barracks closed and the town’s hospital was dramatically downsized, the increase in people travelling elsewhere for work meant the parking area had to be extended. On Tuesday, there was only a handful of cars. The ticket office was closed. Train connections north and south were reduced to a minimum.
A non-scientific poll of followers on Twitter revealed the picture here is much the same as elsewhere outside the cities.
Frederic Halley, a London-based marketing expert, responded: “Traditionally there is more inventory in the supply chain in France than in the UK (country is much bigger and less dense). More food is produced locally and less imported”.
Matthew Fraser, a professor at the American University in Paris, tweeted: “I keep hearing in the media about tightened restrictions in France, but when I go out in the morning the world looks very much the same. The 7th arrondissement is very quiet, but I see people strolling, walking dogs, riding bicycles, doing grocery shopping. No panic in the air.”
Adrian Norris, who runs a tech company in Lyon, wrote: “Saturday evening in Lyon, my Carrefour Market had everything. Staff were wearing latex gloves, and some of them masks. As for the little mini supermarket that I can walk to, it seems to stock far more things than before the outbreak. I haven’t ventured into the really big places.”
Gaelle Faure, a Paris-based fact-checker with AFP, wrote: “A small Carrefour market in Paris 20eme today: Has most everything, though running low on eggs. The vigil lets only a few people in at a time, and the overhead speaker asks people to stay one metre apart. Not everyone does, though.”
In the Yonne in northern Burgundy and neighbouring Loiret, locals are taking the “stay home” message seriously and have little time for the “imbeciles” in Paris or elsewhere who are not. At the nearby old people’s home, the 70 residents have been instructed to remain in their rooms since the general confinement was ordered last Tuesday.
In some seaside resorts and towns, Parisians with second homes have received a frosty welcome. In truth, they were often unpopular before the coronavirus except when spending their money on holiday, and sometimes even then. In the not so distant days when French car registration plates gave the department, those showing 75 for Paris were a particular target for local vandals, even more so than those with GB stickers.
Many villages in the northern Yonne have elderly populations, used to staying at home for reasons of age and ill health, so city cousins who can do the shopping and help out have been mainly welcomed. As long as they keep their distance.