The French Have a Word for it, ‘Verrouillage’

On Tuesday, March 17, at about 11.55am, our plane landed in Paris for a planned three-month stay. During our 24-hour trip, European Union leaders had decided to close their borders from Tuesday midday. Fifteen minutes later, the French border policeman smiled, with a hint of triumph, as he declared that my partner’s Australian passport was useless and entry refused. Fortunately, a more senior officer overruled him because we had landed on French soil just five minutes before the closure of the frontier to non-EU citizens.

So began our 48 hours in locked-down Paris.

On the way to our apartment, the driver told us the new facts of life for the next 15 days — at least 15 days, to be more accurate. Not only had the lockdown — verrouillage, as the French put it — closed all shops except those selling food, medicines and flowers, but even to leave our building we would require a formal attestation, to be produced on demand, to justify our presence on the streets. A new…