About twenty actors held a demonstration in front of the French Ministry of Culture in Paris, demanding the reopening of theaters closed due to the coronavirus pandemic. On April 3, the newspaper La Parisien reports.
According to the newspaper, people stripped to the waist shouted the slogans “Our culture is being stolen!” and “We will die, but not on stage!” Also, the protesters wrote these and other slogans on their bodies.
Another action took place on the morning of the same day in the French city of Besançon, where cultural workers, dressed in black robes, carried a theatrical chair through the city streets to a mourning march. The demonstrators alarmed local residents by shouting at the fire in a large goblet erected in the middle of the square. As reported by radio France Bleu, with this action the artists wanted to show “the funeral of the theater as it is known”.
Concert halls and theaters in France closed at the end of October last year, ahead of the second self-isolation regime since the start of the coronavirus pandemic. Since then, cultural figures have repeatedly demanded that the authorities resume the work of these institutions.
Since Saturday evening, April 3, quarantine measures have been spread throughout the country due to the situation with COVID-19. Restrictions are imposed for four weeks. From April 5, schools and kindergartens are closed for at least three weeks.
On March 29, French doctors spoke about the lack of hospital beds and called on the authorities to immediately close the borders.
On March 30, French President Emmanuel Macron held talks with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Among other topics, they discussed the situation with the coronavirus. They touched upon the prospects for registration in the EU of the Russian vaccine “Sputnik V”, as well as the joint production of this drug in the EU countries.