Paris, Europe Brief News – A Paris court condemned the French government for not having prepared sufficient stocks of facemasks and for the contradictory statements it issued about the virus at the start of the pandemic.
The Paris court handed down its decision, condemning the state for not “[constituting] a stock of masks to fight against a pandemic”, and for its poor communication strategy until May 2020.
The ruling came as the number of registered infections with coronavirus variants rises sharply. It wasn’t immediately clear if the decision will lead to any specific sanctions for the French government.
On the state’s communication strategy, the court criticised the government for its statements “indicating that it was not useful for the general population to wear a mask”, calling them “wrongful, given their contradictory nature with the available scientific data.”
The court also ruled that the state could not be held responsible for how it stocked hand sanitisers while equivalent measures, such as hand-washing, existed.
Meanwhile, the court also rejected over 30 claims submitted by the victims or their relatives who had been affected by the state’s poor COVID management.
The fact that the virus is transmitted randomly, that facemasks do not guarantee full protection and that the state widely recommended other protective measures were enough for the court to reject these claims.
