Covid-19 lockdown last March, jokes about an imminent explosion of “lockdown

The baby boom that never was: France sees sharp decline in ‘lockdown babies’
France's 'James Bond' stuntman Rémy Julienne dies of Covid-19

When France went into its first Covid-19 lockdown last March, jokes about an imminent explosion of “lockdown babies” inundated social media. But nine months later, fresh statistics show that instead of a baby boom, France seems to be experiencing an unusually vast baby drought.

“Lockdown babies” (bébés du confinement) and “the Covid generation” (génération Covid) headlined many a joke when the French were confined to their homes for two whole months back in March, and for another four weeks in the month of November. The time many French couples would finally be able to spend together by being restricted to their homes seemed to offer up endless opportunities to reproduce. The fact that the sale of pregnancy tests shot up by 37 percent just four weeks into the first lockdown, and contraception sales plunged 26 percent in the same period, appeared to – at least in part – support that theory.

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On Tuesday, some nine months later, the first nationwide results were made public. But instead of confirming a baby boom, the numbers gathered by national statistics institute Insee revealed a 2 percent decline in France's birthrate. Even though some of it could be attributed to a natural decline of our times, in part because women wait longer to have babies and therefore may not be as fertile, Insee underscored that the decrease in the latest statistics was indeed "steep".

Experts say there are many reasons for the decline in newborns and that many of them had actually forecast such a drought.

Eva Beaujouan, a researcher in fertility and family trends studies at the University of Vienna, said that historically, economic and health crises – such as the Great Depression in the 1930s and the influenza pandemic in the late 1970s – have led to temporary reductions in birth rates.

“The way people actually experience a lockdown and a pandemic is very different from how they may have projected it. It was much more stressful [than expected] and resulted in some very big changes for people, in terms of work and unemployment. Instead of having babies, this may push them to postpone such projects because of the uncertainty and new circumstances.”

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Her argument is backed up by a recent study published by Demographic Research on the impact of Covid-19 on fertility plans in Italy, Germany, France, Spain and the United Kingdom – countries placed under lockdown in periods during 2020, and where a massive number of respondents confirmed they had either postponed or fully abandoned their baby plans due to the pandemic. In France, 50.7 percent of people said they had postponed their plans to have a child, and 17.3 percent that they had abandoned them altogether.

Beaujouan told FRANCE 24 that aside from the economic fears and the general uncertainty brought on by the coronavirus pandemic, the preventative lockdown measures in themselves are also thought to have played a major role in the sudden drop in newborns.

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“If you were single, the restrictions meant that it was harder for you to meet a partner because you were stuck at home all the time.”

But it is also thought to have affected those who were actually locked down with their partners – and not just because the stress of a pandemic can affect both fertility cycles and people’s libido.

“At the end of the day, couples who were under lockdown together, and who were perhaps home with the children they already have, may have found themselves with so much to do that they didn’t even have enough time to kiss each other,” Beaujouan laughed.

On a more serious note, she added that some people were obliged to postpone having children because fertility clinics and other medically-assisted fertility facilities were shut down during France's first lockdown.

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However, Beaujouan added that although severe crises usually reduce the birthrate, these babymaking breaks are generally temporary and are often followed by an encouraging “pick up” in numbers.

“This is when life gets back to normal, and people have a job again. In France, it’s possible we will see a catch-up in three years or something, and we might see an excess in births.”

Monday brought good news for France as the number of coronavirus infections in the country once again dropped by around half.

A total of 20,155 cases were reported, down from 40,439 on Sunday. The number follows the prior day's welcome drop from Saturday, when a staggering 86,852 cases were reported, according to the Ministry of Health.

The total number of infections in France now stands at 1,807,479.

In another positive sign, medical experts reported Monday that intensive care admissions have fallen over the past week.

Martin Hirsch, Director General of Public Assistance - Paris Hospitals, told France Inter Radio early Monday that ICU admissions had dropped to around 80 per day in the last three to four days from more than 110 per day eight days ago.

The trend, he concluded, is a downward one in the Ile-de-France region. However, Health Minister Olivier Veran said the pattern would follow that of the first lockdown in that numbers of infection and fatalities would increase before their ultimate descent.

Some 89.5% of the country's intensive care beds are now occupied by COVID-19 patients.

On Monday, hospitalizations stood at 20,063, up by 123 cases from 19,940 on Sunday. A total of 3,091 of those remain in intensive care, up by only 54 over the day before. A total of 99 departments throughout France remain in a vulnerable position with 3,042 clusters of infection considered serious.

Over the past week, infections from COVID-19 have risen exponentially, worrying both health professionals and the general public, who had just entered a second lockdown. Infections that reached 20,000+ in mid-October soon climbed into the 30,000 and 40,000 range.

A new high of 52,518 cases was reached on Nov. 2. Although it broke records, it was then surpassed by the 60,486 cases recorded Friday evening and Saturday's high of 86,852.

The death toll on Monday rose, however, to 40,987 with 551 new fatalities reported over the last 24 hours, up from 271 on Sunday.

Worldwide, the death toll from COVID-19 stands at almost 1.3 million in 190 countries since first being detected in Wuhan, China in late December last year. The number of infections is over 50 million, according to the latest figures from US-based Johns Hopkins University.

One of France's leading stuntmen, Remy Julienne, who worked on several James Bond films, has died from Covid-19 aged 90, friends and family said Friday.

A veteran of more than 1,400 films and TV commercials, Julienne had been in intensive care in a hospital in the central town of Montargis since early January.

"What was bound to happen has happened. He left us early in the evening (Thursday). It was predictable, he was on an artificial respirator," a relative told AFP.

His death was confirmed by an MP from the Loiret region, Jean-Pierre Door, a friend of Julienne's.

Julienne was born in Cepoy near Montargis in 1930.

A French motocross champion, he began his film career in 1964 when he doubled for French actor Jean Marais in a film called Fantomas in which he was required to ride a motorbike.

"They needed someone who was very controlled," he said of this experience. "It ended up being me. It was the start of a huge adventure."

His 50-year career saw him fly over Venice hanging onto a rope-ladder attached to a helicopter, being hit in the face with a pumpkin while riding a motorbike, and countless car crashes.

He doubled for some of the world's most famous actors, including Bond stars Sean Connery and Roger Moore, as well top French names including Yves Montand, Alain Delon or Jean-Paul Belmondo.

He worked on six James Bond movies in total, including "GoldenEye" and "For Your Eyes Only".

"Fear is necessary before and after, but never during," he once said of his time of film sets.

French senators on Thursday began studying a new bill aimed at tightening the country’s laws on sexual abuse against children, including harsher penalties for the non-reporting of such crimes. The changes come on the heels of an incest scandal that brought down one of France’s most prominent intellectuals after he was accused of sexually abusing his stepson.

If the new bill is adopted, any sexual relations with a child under the age of 13 – whether considered consensual or not – will be criminalised, and punishable by up to 10 years in prison and a €150,000 fine. The bill also includes a proposal to extend the statute of limitations for child rape, from 30 years after the victim turns 18, to 40 years.

But in the run-up to the Senate vote, the bill was bolstered with a significant addition: increasing the statute of limitations for the non-reporting of such crimes. Anyone bearing witness to, or having knowledge of sexual abuse of a minor, could be held accountable for their silence for 10 years after the victim turns 18. In the case of more serious sexual offences, they could be held accountable for 20 years after the victim turns 18. The statute of limitations is currently set at six years.

The last-minute addition marks an important break with France’s long-standing, and often criticised, tradition of omerta (code of silence) on the subject of incest, a topic propelled into the spotlight earlier this month after Camille Kouchner, the stepdaughter of prominent political scientist Olivier Duhamel, released a book in which she accused Duhamel of having abused her twin brother for several years, starting when he was 14.

In France, sexual abuse committed by non-blood-related family members is considered incestuous. Almost one in 10 French people have been victims of incest, according to a recent survey by French polling institute Ipsos.

In her book, “La Familia Grande”, Kouchner reveals that dozens of her mother’s leftist intellectual friends – some of them household names in France – knew about the abuse but chose to keep quiet.  

"Of course, I thought my book might seem obscene because of my family's fame. Then I thought to myself, this is exactly what needs to be done," she was quoted as saying in an interview with French weekly L'Obs magazine.

Koucher's book sparked a wave of reactions on Twitter under the hashtag #MeTooInceste, which garnered tens of thousands of tweets since first appearing on the social media platform late last week. While the Twitter storm encouraged many victims to come forward and break their silence, it also prompted stark condemnations of witnesses protecting perpetrators through their silence.

France’s First Lady Brigitte Macron told French broadcaster TF1 on Sunday that: “It is absolutely necessary that these actions are known, and that these actions are not silenced.”

Following the accusations against him, Duhamel announced his resignation from all his posts, including as head of the National Foundation of Political Sciences (FNSP) a b