PARIS — French President Emmanuel Macron tested positive for the coronavirus after beginning to show symptoms, the country’s presidential palace announced Thursday.
The palace did not provide details on his condition, but said the 42-year-old president would isolate for seven days while continuing to work.
A spokesperson said Macron was still presiding over a Thursday meeting on development via videoconference from isolation, though the palace told Reuters that all of the president’s upcoming trips — including a visit to Lebanon that was scheduled for next week — had been canceled.
Macron is the latest world leader to test positive for the virus, following President Trump, Britain’s Boris Johnson and Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro — all of whom have recovered. In contrast with those leaders, who at least initially downplayed the threat of the virus, Macron was one of the first heads of state in the West to embrace mask-wearing, and in the spring he presided over one of the tightest lockdowns in Europe. Macron’s age also puts him in a lower risk category.
His diagnosis comes as France is still contending with a second wave of the virus.
It also put other European leaders on alert, since he interacted in the past week with multiple heads of state or government.
French authorities informed the European Union that they believe Macron was a contagion risk starting Monday evening, meaning that the E.U. leaders who attended a summit in Brussels on Dec. 10 and 11 were not considered contacts, an E.U. official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to candidly discuss the health situation.
But Portuguese Prime Minister António Costa said he was with Macron on Wednesday and, therefore, was self-quarantining until the health risk could be assessed.
“I decided to cancel and travel to Africa, as well as the entire public agenda that implies my physical presence,” he wrote on Twitter. “I keep all executive activity and the work schedule at a distance. I feel good and without any symptoms.”
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and European Council President Charles Michel were also self-quarantining after meeting with Macron on Monday.
Sánchez wrote on Twitter that he would be suspending his activities until Dec. 24. El Pais reported Thursday that an initial coronavirus test had come back negative.
Michel would quarantine “as a matter of precaution,” although he tested negative on Tuesday and “is not considered to be a close contact,” his spokesman, Barend Leyts, wrote on Twitter.
French Prime Minister Jean Castex, who has also been in contact with Macron, said he would also be self-quarantining, Agence France-Presse reported.
It was not immediately clear why France believed Macron was contagious starting Monday evening.
Ahead of last week’s E.U. summit, some diplomats were concerned about the health risks of an in-person meeting. Two of the 27 country leaders had to miss the gathering: Croatia’s was sick with the coronavirus, and Estonia’s was quarantining.
Christian Hartmann
Reuters
French President Emmanuel Macron welcomes Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez at the Élysée Palace in Paris on Dec. 14.
The E.U. official said sanitary measures were taken at the summit and that no other participant had tested positive.
In any case, not all European leaders appeared to trust the Élysée’s assurances. Belgian Prime Minister Alexander de Croo said he was being tested for the virus and would quarantine until he receives the result, after sitting in a room with Macron — along with most of the rest of Europe’s leaders — for almost 24 hours straight starting the afternoon of Dec. 10.
On Wednesday, the day before his diagnosis, Macron held a cabinet meeting, although it was not immediately clear whether it took place in person and, if so, whether all participants wore masks. The Élysée Palace did not immediately respond to questions about that meeting.
French first lady Brigitte Macron is likewise self-quarantining but currently has no symptoms, according to a statement from her office to AFP. She tested negative for the coronavirus as recently as Tuesday, her office said, in advance to a visit to a pediatric ward at a Paris hospital.
In late October, a surge of infections prompted Macron to declare another national lockdown, the country’s second since the pandemic began. Nonessential shops began reopening late last month, bars and restaurants must stay closed into January, and the French government lifted France’s lockdown on Tuesday, although it imposed an 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew.
[Coronavirus deaths cast a pall over France, two weeks into a national lockdown]
While the number of new infections showed some improvement after the nearly month-long lockdown, hospitals appear to be more saturated than they were during a first wave in the spring. The government had hoped that the daily case load would be lower than 5,000 by the time it lifted the second lockdown, but on Wednesday the French Health Ministry reported 17,615 new cases in the previous 24 hours along with 264 new deaths. As of Wednesday, hospitals admitted 8,979 new patients, 1,205 of whom were admitted to intensive care units, according to the Health Ministry.
Vaccination in France is set to begin in late December or early January for high risk groups and health-care workers before expanding to the broader population between April and June. It will not be mandatory, Macron has said.
Macron’s diagnosis raised immediate questions about the handling of Brexit negotiations, which need to be concluded within days if there is any chance of Britain and the European Union ratifying a trade deal by Dec. 31, the day London will sever its final ties with the bloc. Leaders had previously floated the possibility of an additional in-person summit in the next two weeks to finalize a deal.
European policymakers have complained that negotiations about thorny issues are nearly impossible when they are conducted virtually, as has mostly been the case since March.
Macron has been one of the most stubborn European leaders during Brexit talks, and his sign-off is crucial to any Brexit deal.
Birnbaum reported from Brussels. Rick Noack in Berlin and Teo Armus in Washington contributed to this report.
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2020-12-17 16:34:00Z
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