this is d.w. news coming to you live from they have one of the strictest lockdowns in europe but now prince is preparing to ease restrictions from monday we hear from people angry at the way their government has handled the crisis also coming up it's being called a political victory for president trump his former aide michael flynn pleaded guilty to lying over his contacts to russia so why has the case against lane now been dropped. 75 years ago today world

war 2 ended in europe with germany's punk conditional surrender we'll look at how the country is marking the occasion under the shadow of the corona bombs. hello i'm terry martin good to have you with us in friends people who have endured one of europe's toughest lock downs for nearly 2 months that will begin to change though next week the number of coronavirus cases in france is rising less sharply than in previous days and some businesses will be allowed to reopen as in other countries authorities in france are under pressure to get the economy moving again . maryanne in a mask france's lockdown was stricter than most now the government has presented its plan for a gradual lifting of france's social commercial and industrial quarantine up we've entered a new stage in our fight against pandemic and it's good news for france and the

french people. businesses are set to reopen on monday 42 percent of french employees are on reduced hours or if not worked at all since the 17th of march schools are to open gradually despite misgivings from some parents trains and transit services also restart on monday but only about half of the rolling stock is ready to operate the government has promised to provide masks for everyone and carry out 700000 tests a week but people are skeptical after 2 months of strict measures they believe their government has botched the response to the current crisis. they should have started large scale testing immediately like in germany i think there's no clear course it's all back and forth we're sick of it. 3 years ago to the day emanuel was bathing in the glory of his election victory now it seems much of that glory

has faded. is a round up of some of it is pandemic news from around the world more than 3800000 people have been infected with the coronavirus globally and nearly 270000 people have died secretary general un and 20 of the tears from the un says the coronavirus pandemic has unleashed a tsunami of hate and xenophobia is call for a global effort to end hate speech south korea has identified more than a dozen corona virus infections linked to club goers in seoul the case is raised fears of another surge in cases and australia has announced a 3 step plan to ease coronavirus restrictions and reopen the economy the aim there is to remove all curbs by july. well here in germany businesses are slowly reopening including restaurants and beer gardens polls suggest a majority of people here are in favor of easing the restrictions slowly. after

weeks of corona lockdown germany appears to be back on the road to normality the traffic in berlin seems as busy as on any other day and in the state of 3 cafes and restaurants have already reopened their outside areas. it's wonderful it's liberating and healthy i think. it's nice to see how happy people are it's joyful. and happy to be able to go out again. recent polls show that people are craving a return to normality. only 41 percent want to continue the lockdown more than half want authorities to further relax restrictions and it seems that the fear of being infected with corona virus has plummeted. only a quarter of those surveyed say they're worried about contracting coded 19 that's half the number it was

a month ago overall germans approve of the crisis management and get america's government which has resulted in a healthy bump in popularity for conservatives if there were general elections on sunday 39 percent would vote for america's c.d.u. c.s.u. bloc an increase of 5 percentage points 16 percent for their coalition partners the social democrats the far right if tea would get 9 the liberals 5 percent the left party 8 and the greens have taken a popularity hit down 4 percentage points the german soccer league the bundesliga is also eager to get their season back on track albeit without spectators while some fans are rejoicing in football mad germany polling shows more people think it's a bad idea. and other news the u.s. just apartment has asked a judge to drop its criminal case against president donald trump's former national security advisor michael flynn in 2017 flynn pleaded guilty to lying to f.b.i.

officials during an independent investigation into russia's interference in the 2016 presidential election and move from the justice department comes as planned was attempting to withdraw all that plain. or earlier we asked our washington correspondent stuff and simmons what they were reaction has been to the justice department's move. well of course across the political spectrum this is very different right now republicans are seeing this as far as early indications seem to hint of indication also the general michael flynn democrats are really angry the chairman of the judiciary committee of the house nader just announced that he will seek a deal with jay what stock investigation as well as having bill bob the attorney general in front of the company to testify. germany is marking 75 years since the end of world war 2 in europe may 8th $945.00 is when allied forces accepted nazi

germany's unconditional surrender in a conflict that cost $50000000.00 lives commemoration ceremonies have been scaled back due to the corona virus pandemic this year here's a look back at some of the events leading up to this historic day 75 years ago. the allied landings in normandy began on the night of june the 5th 1944 the strategy was to trap the german forces by opening up a 2nd front to the west for the allies there was a terrible price to pay. in january 945 the soviet red army liberated auschwitz concentration camp most of the prisoners had already been deported by the s. s. more than a 1000000 mostly jewish inmates were murdered in the camp. by

february soviet troops wearing gaged in house to house fighting constrain on the river in poland was the bridgehead for the assault on lin. early that month allied commanders met in yeltsin on the crimean peninsula stallin roosevelt and churchill sat down to decide how germany would be carved up and the future shape of europe. in mid february british and american bombers dropped 4000 tons of munitions on the german city of dresden setting off a hugely destructive fire storm which killed 25000 people. by mid march the british and americans occupied the whole of. the west bank of the rhine. german attempts to destroy the bridge it remark on on the

east bank who doomed to failure. us and red army troops converged in late april it took out on the river elbe or symbolic handshake showed the world that germany's eastern and western fronts were broken the end of the 2nd world war was approaching. the center of the 30th of april 1905 was a historic day at all fittler committed suicide in his bunker in berlin his body cremated in the garden the bloody battle for berlin was entering its final stage. late that evening soviet troops stormed the german parliament and raised the red flag a symbolic gesture which brought the soviet union's terrible sacrifices to an end. a week later on may the 8th came germany's unconditional surrender the 2nd world

war was over europe liberated from the yoke of fascism. and young is covering the anniversary for a search simon how is this day being remembered in germany. well terri the 8th of may is referred to in germany at 2 as the day of liberation and this year for the 1st time it's been declared a bank holiday here in berlin so the official ceremonies will get underway at 10 o'clock this morning with an e.q. medical church service in the cathedral and then at 12 noon they'll be a wreath laying at the noise that's a building which is germany's central memorial for the victims of war and to shape and reads will be laid by the president the chancellor and the presidents of the bundestag in the bundesrat the chambers of parliament as well as germany's highest

court the constitutional court and after that we'll have a speech from federal president. so this is a solemn ceremony but somewhat pared down from what was originally planned the coronavirus pandemic is forcing many countries to scale back world war 2 commemoration ceremonies isn't it. yeah that's right and originally the german authorities had wanted to hold a full state ceremony here which is a relatively unusual thing to happen it happened last fall the commemoration of supply the end of the 2nd world war on the 50th anniversary in 1905 but it's the most solemn level of ceremonial that we're going to have $1600.00 guests from inside germany but also from other countries dignitaries be ips politicians ambassadors and so on but also a whole range of events with groups meeting and exhibitions being open but all

that's been canceled of course because of the pandemic spin 75 years now since nazi germany was defeated simon is the significance of the 2nd world war beginning to fade in the minds of the german public today. well i think obviously the people who were alive at the time passed so on of the perspective changes but i think there is still really nobody in germany today who doesn't see that this country was born from the ashes of the 2nd world war 2 thirds of germans have told pollsters in a poll just done this week the they think that politics today here is still very heavily influenced by the events of the 2nd world war and if you look at german media there is a continuing focus on the war i think people still have a need to talk about what happened then what it all meant even though of course the memories for many germans are especially painful simon thanks very much for now the

w. political correspondent simon young. as mentioned earlier next weekend will mark the restart of the german professional soccer season it's a controversial step the bonus league is the 1st major sports league to resume play during the global pandemic professional athletes and sports franchises around the world will be watching very closely through the german football league has been plotting its return to the pitch with assistance from doctors and politicians for months now the but his league is in pole position to show the rest of the world how german football strategy worked to get the green light from the state. doesn't turn sunday's in concert the interest in our concept is huge i don't know if it's possible to apply this concept to other countries one to one but we are going to share the knowledge and how we work with it also the mistakes we make of course we are going to make mistakes we want to contribute to the rebound of sports across

the world by showing solidarity. by new combed the world players' association in an brother organization over several professional sport players unions across the globe responded to the announcement of the book is that his return. we believe the guy who won and got naked at the very best practice we were very impressed with the comment by the yemeni god can't be man while knowing he was saying that you know lady should be example we quiet after that. and what where and when it comes to how i mean the lady going to look at anybody need to do that. the other major football leagues the premier league in england italy syria in spades little league are still without a definitive restart date but they are making strides to have one surely they'll be taking notes from the blueprint germany has laid out. and watching t.v.

news don't forget you can get all this news and information around the clock on our website that's dot com you'll find us on twitter and instagram d w news you'll find me on twitter at t.m. news stream i'm terry martin thanks watch. combating the corona pandemic. where does research stand. what are scientists learning. background information and news. hour corona. 19 special next on d w.