China: “These endless confinements are difficult to live with”, says our correspondent

“It happened in a brutal way”, says Sébastien Le Belzic, correspondent for Europe 1. This Frenchman living in China, has not left the territory for almost three years and finds himself once again trapped due to the “zero Covid” policy applied. He tells the microphone of Europe 1 how he was confined with his family, for the second time this year, overnight.

“We still don’t know if there is really a patient”

Since last Saturday, Sébastien can no longer leave his home. “I am confined, locked up at home with my family. As we were about to go out, a guard stopped us”, he says at the microphone of Europe 1. To hold on for a week, vegetables like cabbages and carrots were delivered to him. “But the most incredible thing is that we still don’t know if there is really a patient” in the building, specifies our correspondent.

The journalist and his family are screened every day, even twice a day. “This is the fate of a third of the Chinese population at the moment, more than 400 million people confined sometimes in camps, sometimes at home, like us,” he reports.

A situation that can last several months. In Beijing, the metropolis is nothing more than a ghost town where schools, shops, restaurants and parks have been closed for two weeks already. In China, the mobilization continues against the “zero Covid” policy and the confinements which have paralyzed the country for almost three years. This weekend, the Chinese were in the street, some demanding the resignation of President Xi Jinping, who has imposed a very strict health policy for months, but also pointing the finger at the censorship that is raging.

Half of the French people who lived in Beijing have left the country in the last three years “because it’s true, these endless confinements are very difficult to live with”, assures Sébastien Le Belzic, correspondent for Europe 1.