After a break to take care of a number of pressing professional engagements, I've returned to the site to see ... not much has changed.
Parallel to all this, I've tried to suss out what is happening with the
Conseil d'Etat. That includes seeking information from the plaintiffs to the case as well as checking the
Conseil's website. The latter, unsurprisingly, is not easy to navigate and had nothing I could find about the supposed pending case brought by French nationals in the U.S.
Interestingly, however, French State Secretary for Tourism/Overseas French Citizen Affairs/
la Francophonie (
Le secrétaire d’Etat au Tourisme, aux Français de l’étranger et à la Francophonie) Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne participated in a webinar 4 March hosted by
Lepetitjournal.com. The full recording is available at
https://lepetitjournal.com/santiago/...lemoyne-299622
It runs nearly 50 minutes and is worth watching/listening to (especially with the hilarious close captioning mistakes). The moderator posed his own questions and read many that came from viewers, mostly in Latin America. I summarize very broadly several of Lemoyne's main points:
--French expats and citizens living outside metropolitan France have suffered most among French citizens over the past year.
--Recent results (presumably in terms of infection rates, hospitalizations, and deaths in France) have shown the effectiveness of the recently imposed travel restrictions. Lemoyne emphasized that these measures were "temporary" and prompted by concerns about the more aggressive coronavirus variants circulating and gaining ground since late last year.
--He promised
an expansion and "softening" (choose your translation of "assouplissement") of the motifs impérieux with resepct to families in the coming days ("dans les tous prochains jours"). Lemoyne at least once referred to his ongoing challenge in inter-ministerial meetings securing approval of his proposed changes.
--Lemoyne noted the real hardships these and other restrictions had imposed on families, especially in terms of enforced separation. He declared the French government (GOF) had not taken them for its amusement or lightly.
--Regarding the case brought to the
Conseil d'Etat, Lemoyne noted previous decisions taken that had upheld the government's position on the grounds that the declared health emergency allowed for some "limitation of fundamental rights." This clearly included, in his view, restricting temporarily the constitutional right of French citizens to travel to mainland France. Later, he mentioned that he was aware of some sessions having been held related to this case (acknowledging that there had been various dates -- the 3rd and the 4th -- bandied about).
--When pressed, Lemoyne reiterated that he expected the GOF to announce some changes to the restrictions the week of 8 March.
--Consulates and airlines (notably in the U.S., which was the context of this Q&A) are working more closely together to ensure that French citizens who need to travel to France can do so.
--The discussion also turned to vaccinations,
passeports vaccinaux, French schools, and some other issues I glanced over as unimportant to me and this forum.
Two quick impressions I had:
--This guy came across as a pretty decent bloke and certainly a far cry from the transport minister (Djebarri), who went out of his way to rejoice in the imposition of these tough measures in early February. Yes, there was a bit of the usual blah-blah, but he seemed much more human that the standard issue
marcheurs.
--A possible trigger for this reflection and
asouplissement may actually be the upcoming
élections consulaires set for May. I don't know a lot about the councils that French overseas elect to advise and work with their consular representatives, but my superficial research indicated that, like just about everything else for which one votes in France, there is a real partisan dimension to them. Lemoyne's outreach (he's been quite active lately, from what I can see, including travel outside the EEA) could be partly motivated by trying to keep LREM from suffering another embarrassing electoral defeat a year before national elections.
We shall see just how much the state secretary is a man of his word...