Story By: Joseph Golder, Sub-Editor: Joseph Golder, Agency: Newsflash

The Mayor of Nice has announced that the city will be the first in France to make wearing a mask compulsory after he recovered for the coronavirus.

Making the announcement on Monday, Mayor Christian Estrosi said that he plans for the entire population of the city to be provided with masks within “eight to 10 days.”

During a press conference conducted over the internet using the Zoom videoconferencing software, Mayor Estrosi said he wanted a mask for “every Nicois”.

He said he planned to give citizens masks that are “washable and reusable for a month” and that they will “respect the norms established by the health services of our country so that the whole population of Nice can be provided with them”.

He added that he then planned adopt a rule that would “impose on all those who found themselves outside, in public, the obligation to wear it because it will have been made available.”

Speaking to BFMTV, local Nice citizen Moussa said he thought it was an excellent idea and bemoaned the fact that so many people “aren’t taken things seriously.”

The mayor of Nice’s announcement came as the prefect, Bernard Gonzalez, blasted citizens for flouting isolation rules over the weekend with “whole families” seemingly revelling in “playing hide and seek” with the police. He added that fines had been doled out in the hundreds.

The mayor of Cannes, David Lisnard, quickly followed suit, announcing on Twitter that every inhabitant of his city would be provided a mask that meets the AFNOR S76-001 standard, adding that they were being produced by a French hospital hygiene company.

The revelation comes after the French government initially insisted that the general public did not need to wear them and that they would only be of use to healthcare workers, sick people or people with coronavirus symptoms. The executive branch is reportedly no longer ruling out eventually adopting a nationwide “mask for all” strategy.

French medics are increasingly encouraging the public to wear masks, with Professor Jerome Salomon, the head of the country’s public health, encouraging people to wear the “alternative masks that are currently being produced.”

While the AFNOR S76-001 norm is not of the same standard as surgical masks (FFP2), its standard has nonetheless been endorsed by “about 150 experts”, according to AFNOR, the French national organisation for standardisation.

The French National Academy of Medicine goes further, saying that these “alternative” masks should be “obligatory” during and after this isolation period.

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