♪ >> the french government announces an 18 billion euroro plan for the country's tourism industry. the prime minister saying the french people should be able to holiday within france in july and august. accessthe u.s. priority would be unacceptable, that's the french government's reaction after one company said the u.s. would get first dibs on its coronavirus vaccine. and lebanon re-imposes a stay-at-home order after a spike in the numbers. this shutdown is due to last four days.

uslo, thank you for joining i'm claire pryde and we start with the french government announcing its marshall plan for the tourism industry which has taken a massive hit due to the coronavirus pandemic. it's going to inject 18 billion euros into the industry. the prime minister calling this unprecedented and necessary. tourism is a crucial part of france's economy representing more than 7% of gdp. [speaking french] claire: our correspondent discovering the story, she is that the that she e was at the

front prime ministers office for the unveiling of that plan. >> the prime minister announcing the total of 18 billion euros in public aid for the hotel and restaurant sector, and unprecedented plan, really emphasizing the tourism which remains a national priority. you can feel that the prime minister was trying to reassure the sector and empathize with them. he said he understood that they are the first to close and they will be the last to open. on that note we e don't have a n of clarity regarding a date. the prime minister said they are aiming to reopen restaurants and less impacted areas in france, the green zone's, starting on june 2, but the primime minister said they will confirm that on may 25. they hope on may 25 to give a date when restaurants and so-called red zones like here in paris can actually reopen for their part. that is something that restaurant workers really want to know, when they will be able to be open.

they will likely not be very satisfied by that announcement. the prime ministerer made itit r that in july and august french people will be able to go on vacation within france, including in overseas departments, which means the 100 kilometer limit will be listed, at least for those two months. the prime minister also made it clear that hotels and travel agencies are committed to reimbursing any cancellations that might happen to occur due to the coronavirus. so really trying to reassure french people that if they start to make their vacation plans now, they don't have to worry about it and they will be reimburseded. really trying to kickstart those summer vacation plans. sanofi moving on to causing a stir after the ceo spoke to bloomberg, saying thehe u.s. would l likely be first in line should the company managed to developop coronavirus v vcine because it has invested the most

paired the french governor saying this would be unacceptable. i spoke with our correspondent on this. it was the french deputy finance ministers saying that the idea was u unacceptablble, e reaction of cocourse was over ceo,ments made byy sanofi paul hudson, an e englishman. he said the u.s. government has the right to o the largest preorder becauause it has invnvd and taken ththe risk to develola covivid-19 vaccine. receieive financial support from the u.s. government, last december it won millionorth 200 $56 toh the department of health expand its infnfluence of vacci, which is in pennnnsylvania whihh is being used to crcreate a new

vaccccine. bubut it's also been benefiting from tens of millions of eururos inin credit from the french stae over the years. we have to bear in mind that they are talking about a vaccine that is still being developed, and it will not be availilable until the end of next year. but sanofi has become the leading developer after teaming up with its british rival to work together on this project. is ae: joining me now virologist at lancaster university in the u.k.. thank you very much for your time. as we just saw, sanofi has been causing controversy with its comments about the u.s. getting its vaccine should come up with one before anyone else. but there is not one yet anywhere. us about the relationships when it comes to efforts to find the vaccine, european madison agency

sayiying that a a year is optimisticic. >> this is a more realistic times i'm -- timeline. of the audience members know, there are more than 100 vaccines in preclinical trials and eight are reaching the clinical trial w where they aren human blood for the first time. rapidly,has been made, but we don't have any vaccine that we can count on this year, because the vaccine needs to be tested vigorously to be sure that they are safe. so no vaccine anytime soon, but a few countries that have seen a steady drop in the number of deaths has started easing lockdown restrictions, like here in france. at the same time we are seeing countries like lebanon asking people to stay at home again.

and we have seen a spike in new cases in south korea. what do you make of that? should we be concerned? or was this to be expected? matter of thehe fact is that the v vast majojority of pe are still uninfected so they have no existiting immunity.y. so any relaxation in the lockdown will allow people to come back to normal life and they would be interacting g with people whohoave the infnfection, especially t thoseho havave no clinical signs. the e transmisission would go ur the same scale as before. relaxationremature which is happening in many cocountries, including the u.k., the chances for this virus to come bacack be very high. also the important thing to emphasize is the fact that if , it would bes -- the same in any other country which h was already plannining e content -- protected or have control.

so it't's to have an assist -- eight -- to have a consistent approach around the world. >> and this started inin china, china not keen on letting the who investigating the ororiginsf the outbreak. understanding how it started important to ending this crisis? c certainly it's important to understand where the disease has come from soso thahat we canan e policies so that it will not come back again. if youreally investigate can identify which intermediate the virus tocause jump, then we can certainly devise policies ensuring this would not happenen again. and this is really a challenging especially since the

wet markets were shot in the early days. virus m mayf the alalways remain a mystery, but identifying this may help identify future course. claire: we apprececiate your tie and your analysisis. thank you very much indeed. lebanon,opulation of as i mentioned, spent its first night under lockdown. last week the government responded to a drop in the number of new cases by letting places like hairstylists reopen and now they are shut again and people are being ordered to stay at home. this is afteter more than 1000 w infections were recorded. we have more from our correspondent in beirut. there were negotiations and it was finally confifirmed that there e would be a total lockdo. detatails were released d yeste, it does not t look t that much

different to the previous lockdown, the curfew happening at 7:000 and now at 6:00 with restaurants ththat are allowed o open and are being forced to close again with a few businesses that have been open -- been allowed to open. people are allowed to move around during the day, they are allowed to go to supermarkets and pharmacies. but one thing that has not rules ares that these not being enforced. ,t's been patchy and busy areas in some areas people were moving around very freely. butere might be a change, people may wonder how this is different fromom before. 10 days ago, lebanon started to open up after having successfully reduced the number of new cases to leless than five each d day. as soon as they did that they started to open up and people started moving around freely

again. and we saw q quite a lot of new cases coming in. it jumped up to around 2020 new cases a day wiwith 150 newew cas inin those 100 days, andnd whenu look at the fact that there were only 700 at ththe start of the pandemic -- the government is still saying ththey will contine the repatriation and i it's nota mandatory quarantine for people and they come back. so there are concerns that though the lockdown is in place, what will it really do? perhaps it will be extended, or it may only be f four d days bee i don't want people to be frustrated having only just come out of lockdown. >> like many countries around the world, lebanon has seen the pup or a come up with some thoughtful and creative ways to make the lives o of medical workers a little cheerier. from our team in lebanon. ♪ this is how the hotel

university hospital in beirut celebrated international nurses day. around composer with a musicians grouping together to sing songs of life and hope in the garden of the hospital. inside, large number of medical personnel continue to battle against the coronavirus pandemic. [speaking foreigign language] >> another initiative launched by the group lebanon of tomorrow, in cooperation with the mobile clinic of the lebanese-american university has freely tested a symptomatically in different just -- a symptom --ally -- a asymptomatic patients. [speaking foreign language] continuee the need to

testing, these programs exist. [speaking foreign language] >> health crisis has created social solidarity among citizens, and offering crucial support to the medical profession in controlling the disease. governmentael's new will be sworn in later this thursday. it took three elections in the space of the space of year to get here. went hisnetanyahu political rival agreed to form a unity government to tackle the coronavirus crisis. in thee taking turns role of prime minister with netanyahu going first. our correspondent is in jerusalem and on the potential pitfalls of this alliance. it is a question n whether itit will work. negotiation,ononths of

and i think it's actually the corona government, because it would not have happened without that extra push of the health and economic crisis. pentagon's -- one man has divided and destroyeye his political party to join benjamin netanyahu. each will go for eight months, starting with benjamin netanyahu. israel has 120 members in its parliament, between one quarterr and one third of them, 36 members of parliament, will be ministers in this government. it is those super engineers, that the only way they could get those agreements. yoyou can see lots of people alg the way. this government will not last for eight months and so the other may not see his term for a. claire: that's it for this

edition, think you for watching, stay tuned. ♪ >> good morning, welcome to the interview on france 24. in france, the lockdown ended on the 11th of may, which is an opportunity for many businesses to reopen but hotels and restaurants will have to wait, until when? we don't know. the beginning of june? the end of june? are what -- are restaurants ready to welcome customers again and what condition will it be too late? we'll talk about this with our guest. good morning. thank you for being here. you are an emblem attic personality a french television, since the beginning of the lockdown you have been working

to alert the government, and the general public on n the state of the restaurant industry. how threatened is the restaurant industry in franance? > seriously threatenened. ey h have been t that way sinine the be gettingng of this crisis. we will be the last to open, and you can imaginee that it's realy tough. i had an outburst, but it was a way to take stock for everyone to happen. thatause we have restaurants hahave low test levelsls because they have already been suffering because of the strikes that have been going on. that there was a real danger. the outburst was spread around the meaty end it was good because people heard the message. alarmist,ded a bit some people said i was optimistic but really i am fundamentally optimistic.

i was just saying what the truth was. it wasas good that thehe messags heard and there are big reactions. but now what we need to do is come up with solutions. thinkt solutions can you of? you have proposed some solutions , you have seven protocols you have presented because the health protocol has to be set up in order to reopen these and you have presented a protocol to the government. what does it consist of? >> with the workgroup we came up with a health protocol and it was going to be sent through to the governmenent, because t they asked us to cocome up with one. we came up with seven. the government will group them together, and publish a report on the different protective measures to o be implemented. but before that, the first thing that has to bebe done in the fit thing we w worked on with our working group, and we are talklking about 20,000 restaurat owners, we sat d down to tatalk aboutt it, and we had to come up withth measures for all of these

small, mediuium, large companies ththat will have to be facining prolond closure, and hohow we can support them. we had to come up p with supportive measures to support their businesses. to on that, we will be able bring in protective measures. without that we will not be able to open up shop. >> can you tell us about these measures. customers reassure and encourage them to come back to the restaurants? what can we set up so that restaurants become as normal as possible?? a bit like they were before in any case. >> to be e back to normal and bk toto what t it was before? no. we will have to have social distanancing in place, space between the tables. all of the measures we are talking aboutut, those are not n stone. that will come later. they are on plelexiglas. but remember we are talking about lively venues where ththee

used to be so much hubbub. people would c converse i in chitchchat. but now these restaurants will look m more like retirement hom, if notot hospitals. it's concerning but i want to , wesure our future clients are going to have to reinvent things and who knows what we will have to do. therere's no point t in rackingr brains over it too much, because what we know how to dodo is coo. that's our job. we know how to create a a good environment and an enjoyablble venue, having customers come into our door and welcomed them. that's what we can do. weweeed to reaffirm thahat we ae ining to put in n necessary heah measures to o make sure everythg is safe. hi gina someththing we know howo do butut we will have to do that -- hygiene is something wewe knw how to d do but we will have too that more. i hope customers will want to come back into our restaurants. but really i have no doubt about that. but i will have to admit that things will be different.

and the other thing is how long will this last? >> have restaurant owners felt supported by the government since the start of t lockdown question mark >> -- - lockdown? ourhe government t ask us for help because they realize there were few things slipping through the c cracks and we were there r that.. the government really saw my outburst and they saw how seriouous the situtuation was. they took things in hand. >> -- the government has so much to focus o on but they also have tourism as a much bigger industry. i think what we want to see as all players playing their part. the european funds as well, there's some any schemes and measasures that t could be put o place that could provide reaeal help to our industry. but t i do strongly believee tht the government is doing its job, and they are for exampmple takig ththe brunt of the unemployment

cost, which h will be a hugege . haveat about morale, you workgroup, are they still optimistic? lower.le cannnnot be there were two suicides in our ranks. press that's awful. fear iseally and truly that t this crisis w will have e effects after than during. wrong, i sincerely hope so. ii s see these messages s cominn on a daily basis. coming fromgeges restaurant ownwners who are distressed. theyey don't know who to call fr help or how w they can manage. and it's really tough. it's tougugh to g get those mess because e people are facing

bankruptcycy. on top of that t they are losing morale. they are in the pits. they are waiting for solutions to come forward but the solutionons are not coming fastt enough. >> a few days ago the prime that the numbers were green and restaurants might be able to be reopened at the beginning of june and this could be a small glimmer of hope though we still must remain cautious. has this reassured you and your colleagues to hear this? >> it t is a step in the right direction. the first step. dependsds on how discipiplined the french men and women n can be. i think it's a a litmus test t r us.. the presesident of the french republic was clearar when we spe by video conference in april. he said there's no point in opening upup a restaurant if we are going t thave closesed doors in two weeks. that w wld have woworse

consequences. , ththink we need to b be cauaus when we open doors we need to make sure we are doing so under ththe right conditions. we need the right supportrt measures because obviously our businesses will be facing a drop by 50% if not more of their regular business. they're t talking about a a phay phase reopenining where beachsie resorts will open first t and others later area we will see how it happened. we are still waiting for concrete propositions. only beeopening will possible if the lockdown is successful. do you trust the french people? do you t think theyy wilill be disciplined d enough? >> i i really hope so. that theyth as well will be able to b be discipline. becaususe our fure d depends onn it. we are going to sesee how thee virus changes in the futurure. it's really challenging. we understand because we have seen people in publblic transnst

and it's totough. we havee to bebe careful, you he to protect yourself and your loved ones. germany,ntries like switzerland, spain, some restaurants have reopened in certain regions, and gradually. what do you think o of this? do you thihink france is being o cautious? ask thean know noise question of how we have done too mumuch order h has not enough bn done? we will count sheep later. i think if f we look at spainin, there lockdown measures were far stricter than france and the spaniards followed it to the letterer. with the way things are done we will see howow they ease thehe lockdowns and its way for us to observe what's happeningg elsewhere. germany is well, germanany's different because ththeir insurance companies fought to help cover loss business costs for all companies.

anand they have some breathing room's that w when they open up they can do so comfortably. that's what we are lacking. ? on top of being a michelin star o ofperson -- >> on top being a mimichelin star chairperson and a high-level athlete, you're also a musician, you play the drums with your group. and you covered under pressure by david bowie. let's take a look. ♪ >> from the beginning of this

video, the message was clear that the fight goes on, you remain steadfast and it's a different way to spread yourur message. >> we actually started with my band to work on a cocover of p y thee beatles, and it w was perft timing, runtime with a 50 year anniversary of their bait -- their breakup. it was t p perfect message because e we are going through e epidemic, the e virus that was affecting us all and we had to be putut into lockdodown. now w the pressure is that we he pressuret and be under and be careful and cautious. i do not realize super going to play that video. this morning i was going to wear a t-shirt with david bowie but they told me to put on a button down. >> that would have been fitting. >> it would have been funny. but aside from the messages that i want to convey, it's a way for me to hahave a bit of fun n the dada my days are spent with doing so

much, frfrom the momoment i getp toto the moment i go to bed, i'm in conversation with government, ministers, restaurant owners, finding ways for how to move forward and it takes up so much time and energy, i have to be so concentrated for these goals. i spent so much of my timime and energy going into that bubut sometimes i need to let go of some of the pressure and blow off some steam. it's a way for me to react -- relax. >> we agree completely. thank you very much. we hope that all french restaurants and the restaurants around the world that have been abiding all of these measures will be able to reopen soon so we could make the most of them. thank you so much for talking to us. >> we will pull through. >> we hope so indeed, have a very good day on france 24, stay tuned. ♪

- hey, i'm valerie june.e. coming up on reel south . in 1964, a band of blues hounds traveled sout - [m] ] i me, mimisssippi,i, for young ite people who might've ce e from nenew gland oraliforornia wareallylyike a neworl you couldn i imagi it. - - [valie] theione go, to sni out eay legendof the mississippblue - [woman] they h t the rordsds, theyeyad the rordis. bubuthere was still so mumuch wdidndn'tnonow. - an] if tre wasasny chance ofof tse peoeoe still beg alive, itas w wor whatetever effort whad to p in to get them in front of a micphone again. ♪ fight tra, freigh trai runnin'o fast ♪ - [valieie] hih a a ri on two trains runnin'n'. ♪ freightrarain, eighght traiai runnin' so fast ♪