Most workers in France will soon have to wear masks in the workplace starting September 1, according to proposals put forward by the country’s Labor Ministry on Tuesday.
The move is intended to encourage companies to resume normal business activities while keeping employees safe. It follows the advice issued on Friday by the country’s Higher Council of Public Health, which was reacting to the growing scientific consensus that the new coronavirus is spreading through the air. Masks reduce the risk that infected people will transmit the virus.
In a statement Tuesday, the Labor Ministry said masks should become de rigueur in the closed and shared spaces of companies, except where there is only one person working alone.
The ministry said telecommuting remains the recommended practice, due to how it limits the spread of infections in the workplace and on public transportation.
“The protection of workers’ health and the continuity of our economic activity are at stake,” Élisabeth Borne, French Labor Minister, said in a statement. Laurent Pietraszewski, its secretary of state, said the ministry would now work with stakeholders to figure out how to implement the new rules.
According to health communities workplaces were the source of a quarter of the groups of infections reported since the lifting of the blockade. The government is now desperate to avoid the need to re-impose measures as strict as those lifted in May, after the initial period of lockdown.
Last week, French Prime Minister Jean Castex warned the public: “If we do not act collectively, we put ourselves at greater risk that the rebound in the epidemic will be difficult to control.”
The recognition of coronavirus as an disease has led to a gradual increase in mask mandates. Many European countries for months required people to wear masks in shops and at public places, but Italy, for example, has just ordered people to wear masks at night in public areas where groups can form.
Still, it is unusual to see mandatory masks in offices.
French unions have been pushing for such a move French Amazon workers go on strike in May and one complaint is the lack of masks in the workplace.
Unions have demanded better workplace protections for next month, when schools are scheduled to reopen and workers will return from their cherished summer vacation, another notable vector for the spread of the virus.
The French General Confederation of Labor, one of the country’s largest unions, gave a cautious welcome to the ministry’s announcement. “Wearing a mask is an individual protection solution,” he said in a statement, “but it cannot be the only one.”
