France prepares evacuation of its citizens from coronavirus-hit Wuhan, China
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France is planning to evacuate its citizens from the Chinese city of Wuhan, the epicentre of the deadly coronavirus epidemic, the French Foreign Ministry said.
A statement on the official webpage of the French consulate in Wuhan said that France was “considering … setting up a bus service allowing French citizens, their spouses and children to leave Wuhan”.
The French Foreign ministry has set up an emergency phone line. On Saturday, an official answering the line told FRANCE 24 that the bus transport details were still being worked out, but that the plan was to take French citizens trapped in Wuhan to another Chinese city, where they would undergo a 14-day quarantine before being allowed to move on.
French automotive group PSA, maker of the Peugeot and Citroen brands, said on Sunday that it will also planning expat staff and their families from the Wuhan area. The PSA staement said that 38 people would be evacuated and that the initiative will be executed in full collaboration with the Chinese authorities and the French general consulate.
PSA said the evacuees will remain in quarantine in Changsha before traveling back to their home countries.
France confirmed on Friday its first three cases of the Wuhan coronavirus, with two patients being hospitalised in Paris and the other in the southwestern city of Bordeaux.
Health Minister Agnes Buzyn told a news conference authority had confirmed two cases, Europe’s first, and that more cases were likely to occur in France.
In a separate statement on Friday, the health ministry announced the third case, a relative of one of the first two.
