France to lift Covid curfew from June 20, wearing face masks not mandatory anymore

French PM Jean Castex has said that wearing face masks outdoors will not be mandatory starting Thursday. He also said that the 11 pm Covid curfew will be scrapped on June 20.

France on Wednesday said it was ending the obligation to wear masks outside and would bring forward the lifting of a nighttime curfew, as Covid infections fall and the country's vaccine drive picks up. Prime Minister Jean Castex said the requirement for people to wear masks outdoors in much of the country would be lifted from Thursday, with some exceptions, while an unpopular 11:00 pm Covid curfew will be scrapped on June 20, 10 days earlier than initially planned. Mandatory mask-wearing outdoors and the curfew, which was put in place on October 30 and had at one point been as early as 6:00 pm, had begun to encounter growing opposition among the French public in the hot summer weather.