If the end of year celebrations usually rhyme with family reunions, in this year 2020, the French would be ready to change their habits because of covid.
Christmas confined, Christmas anyway? In any case, this is the conclusion of Ifop (French Institute of Public Opinion), which in October 2020 is carrying out a barometer in partnership with the newspaper Le Parisien. This concerns the perception that the French have of two crises: health, currently underway, and economic, announced in the coming months. It first reveals that the French are quite anxious by the current context, both health and economic. However, they fully understand the measures imposed to contain the epidemic.
The most revealing figure of this awareness is certainly this: 71% of French people are ready to accept prolonged confinement during the Christmas and New Year celebrations. This result is certainly due to the fact that the population has been little by little prepared for this eventuality: on November 1, 2020, in an interview with the Journal du Dimanche, Olivier Véran was already planning small parties, declaring that this year, "Christmas will not be a normal holiday". A fairly clear warning about the precautions to be taken, even on this particular date.
Health as a priority over the economy
Unlike the first confinement, the population generally favors health over the economy. This anguish, however, almost as much as the health crisis: to the question "What is the biggest threat to the country?", 52% of respondents answered "economic crisis".
The French have nevertheless taken the measure of the seriousness of the health situation: 63% of them believe that it is better to have an excess of health protection rather than focusing on economic recovery. Containment could be extended for 8 to 12 weeks (i.e. until the end of January) if the drop in the spread of Covid-19 is not significant enough by the beginning of December.