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Anti-elite and anti-political resentment have become a permanent feature of political life in many if not most contemporary democracies, leading to support for populist parties, systematic anti-incumbent voting, and new types of movements, such as the Yellow Vests protests that shook France in 2018–2020. The aim of this paper is to explain the unusual popular support they mobilized. Going beyond the somewhat tautological "populist" label attached to the movement this paper proposes a class-based explanation. Using original data from a survey run after the European Elections of 2019, it shows that social precarity, combined with a lower /working class position, is the main driver of affinity with the YV. The movement is disproportionately supported by the most insecure segments of production workers (mostly men) and service workers (mostly women), giving an identity to those who feel excluded and not represented by mainstream parties and unions. This disaffected "precariat" can be seen as a magnifying glass of the crisis of political representation affecting most Western democracies. A reservoir of discontent that is here to stay and that the economic and political impact of the Covid-19 pandemic could revive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Drawing on the French case, this article examines the size and scope of poverty resulting from the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, the diversity of poverty's manifestations and the role of public action (among other actors) in addressing the poverty. This reflection unfolds at the confluence between the international literature on the economic effects of COVID-19 around the world and the methodological and conceptual issues on poverty. Design/methodology/approach: Following a research report to the French Government in 2021, a new academic collaboration is initiated to assess the conceptual issues underlying the report's nine quantitative, qualitative and participatory studies. A thematic analysis is used to elaborate on an original framework. Findings: COVID-19 not only had detrimental economic effects on specific groups, such as precarious workers and students, but also serious effects on social isolation, mental health, access to welfare and public services. Together with assessing the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic on poverty in France, this paper highlights the lack of recognition of community support in the face of hard times. Originality/value: The COVID-19 outbreak has not only deteriorated socioeconomic situations in France, but has also unmasked structural, long-term components of poverty. The paper discusses three policy implications of these revelations, concerning (1) the monitoring of non-monetary dimensions of poverty, (2) the needs of various groups under a welfare state with a dual structure and (3) the role of communities in public policy schemes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides insights into the impacts of a self-employment and entrepreneurship education program for high-skilled long-term unemployed workers aged 45-65 in France during the COVID-19 pandemic. The training program involves individual tutoring, synchronous online classes and lead generation workshops with a freelancing project to design and present to a committee. We studied the impact of the training through an adapted version of the CHEERS questionnaire sent to the trainees six months after the training completion. In contrast to the previous literature, we show promising results for this kind of training. Our results show that this training program not only helps people to start a freelancing career but also prepares many of them to find an employee position after a long period of unemployment. We have also been able to identify the main characteristics of the jobs obtained afterwards that matter to high-skilled senior workers and to describe five trainee profiles through a cluster analysis: (1) enthusiastic but not confident, (2) quick return to salaried employment, (3) focused on freelancing, (4) demanding and disappointed elders, and (5) struggling with business tasks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We analyze how far-sightedness and risk aversion as well as the perceived trustworthiness of others correlate with COVID-19-related protective behaviors in France. We leverage individual-level data from the corona survey of the Survey of Health Aging and Retirement in Europe linked with a paper questionnaire survey about preferences conducted in France just before the coronavirus outbreak. Our results suggest that far-sightedness and risk aversion are strong predictors of individuals' protective behavior. More far-sighted individuals are more likely to not visit their family members anymore, wear a mask, and keep their distance from others when outside, wash their hands more regularly and cover their cough. Risk aversion increases the likelihood of not meeting more than 5 other people and not meeting with family members anymore. Concerning the perceived trustworthiness, we find that a higher level of trust in others reduces compliance with the recommendations about meeting with 5 or more people and family gatherings. We interpret this result as a sign that individuals with trust in others perceive a lower risk of being infected by friends and family members. Hence, they are more willing to take risks when they engage in social interactions when they perceive their relatives as trustworthy. The government should therefore consider individuals' heterogeneity in preferences and beliefs when implementing a strategy to encourage people to comply with its COVID-19 protective recommendations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This paper aims to explore the protective and risk factors involved in student loneliness after the lockdown measures taken limiting social contact during the COVID-19 pandemic in France. Design/methodology/approach: Using a cross-sectional survey methodology, the authors collected data on a sample of 546 students pursuing management education in a French business school in several campuses. Loneliness was measured by the three-item UCLA loneliness scale. Logistic regression analysis examined the factors influencing student loneliness. Findings: The prevalence of loneliness was 23.4%. Risk factors for loneliness were social isolation especially in terms of intensity and isolation from friends (OR: 5.40), having a regular paid activity (OR: 1.62) and not getting academic help from other students (OR: 2.11) or taking meals alone during the lockdowns (OR: 1.94). Being a male student (OR: 0.47), practicing a sport (OR: 0.64) and studying at a specific campus (OR: 0.43) were protective factors. Practical implications: Understanding protective and risk factors affecting student loneliness helps higher education decision-makers to take the necessary actions to enhance student well-being which have an effect on learning processes. Originality/value: Loneliness is a major public health concern among students. Knowledge of the determinants for loneliness are limited and this article attempts to augment this by exploring several protective and risk indicators of loneliness among French students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

COVID-19 led to a shockwave in all aspects of the tourism sector, generating an increase in significant studies. The research regards the selected problems within the tourism industry in France: the participation in tourism for personal purposes; the total contribution of travel and tourism to GDP; domestic tourism expenditure; spending of international tourists; the direct contribution of travel and tourism to employment; the average price of a standard double hotel room in Paris in terms of the COVID-19 pandemic. The fundamental aim of the paper is the assessment of the situation within the tourism industry in France in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. The paper is using of statistical, dynamics, comparative and documentation analysis. The discussion shows that the tourism sector in France within the chosen aspects impacted various COVID-19 pandemic related shocks in the examination time. The authorities applied the relevant instruments, solutions, and activities that mitigated the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and, in result, positioned tourism industry in France on the proper way to return to the position as one of the most visited countries in the world. Originally from 2021, similar tourism tendencies to those noticed in 2020 (country lockdowns, quarantines, border closures), modifications of structure beginning from summer 2020 can result in hysteresis consequences in 2022. The inference process took place in a deductive way. The presented paper regards the leading tourist country. It focuses on the considerations in such scientific areas as participation in tourism for personal purposes; the total contribution of travel domestic tourism expenditure; spending of international tourists; employment. Applying the instruments and measures of the analysis enables one to examine the crucial problems of the tourism industry. The arguments indicated in the paper can be beneficial for practitioners, decision-makers, and managers. The pandemic's trajectory is challenging to be forecast. The COVID-19 pandemic modifications can cause the growth of infected people. Furthermore, the defined economic activity within the tourism sector resulting from additional lockdowns may have a meaningful influence on the different aspects of the socio-economic ground. The paper can inspire additional research and examination in the ground of crucial issues of the tourism industry in France and other stimulating scientific analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Empirically, this paper questions whether accounting can help cope with crisis and preserve some form of feminist ideals. Theoretically, this paper aims to explore how accounting affects the division of emotional work in times of crisis. Design/methodology/approach: The paper relies on a qualitative study that investigates "life under lockdown" during the COVID crisis and focuses on middle-class well-educated couples aspiring for some form of gender equality and who introduced accounting tools (schedules, charts, to-do-lists, etc.) in their daily life to achieve it. Findings: The paper argues that accounting tools are not able to prevent couples from adopting traditional ways of carrying out emotional work. By favoring the masculine way of displaying emotions, they make invisible women's efforts for comforting. They even mask the unequal distribution of emotional work under some form of "neoliberal equality". Also, in a context where middle-class standards are perceived as crucial to meet for both parents to keep their social position, accounting tools, by holding parents accountable for these standards, let no time to find alternative ways of living. Consequently, traditional roles become impossible to reverse. Research limitations/implications: The paper investigates accounting, gender and emotions by showing the importance of making emotional work visible at a household but also at an organizational and societal level. It calls for an "integrative" emotional display that is crucial for resilience in times of crisis and invites to challenge neoliberal middle-class standards that make household life difficult for most women. Theoretically, it invites for further exploring how accounting tools are constructed and negotiated and how unpredictable elements of life other than emotions affect gender when accounting tools are introduced in times of crisis. Originality/value: This article contributes to the literature on gender-in-accounting by introducing the concept of emotional work and showing how accounting tools affect the gendered division of emotional work in praxis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article studies the consequences of the COVID-19 global health crisis on the fashion and textile industry in France. This crisis is only part of an already long, slow decline in the industry. The paper analyzes the composition and organization of textile industry. It offers data related to: sales, consumption, employees, company size, as well as imports and exports - all highlighting the importance of fashion and textiles in France today. The paper shows how lockdown has asphyxiated production and retail sales. COVID-19 caused the appearance of new challenges: mask production, new aspects of CSR in luxury textiles and the development of antiviral fabrics. Mask production can be considered as a case study useful in the analysis of textile challenges. In this context, the French textile industry should continue to improve on innovation and quality. Promoting labelling on the global market can help the sector to develop its high-end. France is credible to expanding its fashion and textile supply in luxury. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SEIR (Susceptible–Exposed–Infected–Recovered) approach is a classic modeling method that is frequently used to study infectious diseases. However, in the vast majority of such models transitions from one population group to another are described using the mass-action law. That causes inability to reproduce observable dynamics of an infection such as the incubation period or progression of the disease's symptoms. In this paper, we propose a new approach to simulate the epidemic dynamics based on a system of differential equations with time delays and instant transitions to approximate durations of transition processes more correctly and make model parameters more clear. The suggested approach can be applied not only to Covid-19 but also to the study of other infectious diseases. We utilized it in the development of the delay-based model of the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany and France. The model takes into account testing of different population groups, symptoms progression from mild to critical, vaccination, duration of protective immunity and new virus strains. The stringency index was used as a generalized characteristic of the non-pharmaceutical government interventions in corresponding countries to contain the virus spread. The parameter identifiability analysis demonstrated that the presented modeling approach enables to significantly reduce the number of parameters and make them more identifiable. Both models are publicly available. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Boletín de la Asociación de Geógrafos Españoles is the property of Asociacion de Geografos Espanoles and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Background: Many instructors transitioned their courses from face‐to‐face environments to computer‐mediated learning environments (CMLEs) following the onset of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19) pandemic. However, little was known about how teleconferencing platforms and their corresponding functions affect student learning when the COVID‐19 pandemic began. Objectives: The aim of this study was to provide more clarity on the conditions through which online teleconferencing platforms influence student achievement. More specifically, this study investigated how displaying lecture‐relevant and lecture‐irrelevant messages in a chat box during a video lecture delivered via the Zoom teleconferencing platform affected student learning and note taking. Methods: Participants viewed the video lecture either with (relevant or irrelevant) or without messages appearing in the chat box of the Zoom window. Participants completed a learning test immediately following the lecture. Results and Conclusions: No difference regarding student achievement was observed between the three groups. However, results revealed that students in the relevant‐lecture messages group reported a higher extraneous cognitive load than the other groups even if they reported positive attitudes about the messages appearing on the chat box. Students in the lecture‐relevant group also recorded more notes during the lecture compared to the two other groups, but this result did not reach significance. This study extends previous research that investigated how messaging influences learning in classroom settings. Findings suggest that allowing relevant discussions is not the best strategy to promote learning in CMLEs as this information seems to compete with the other relevant information being presented during the ongoing lecture. Lay Description: What is already known about this topic: In video lectures, the chat box has been identified as the function most often used to support students' learning.Responding to lecture‐relevant messages can enhance students' learning.However, it remains unknown how simply reading, but not responding to, lecture‐relevant and lecture‐irrelevant messages can affect learning and note taking. What this paper adds: In previous studies, researchers examined how messaging affects learning in a classroom setting, but not within a computer‐mediated lecture environment.The present study extends previous research that investigated how messaging influences learning in classroom settings.This study provides more clarity on the conditions through which online teleconferencing platforms affect student learning and note taking.Findings suggest that allowing relevant discussions is not the best strategy to promote learning in CMLEs as this information seems to compete with the other relevant information being presented during the ongoing lecture. Implications for practitioners: The features of video lectures are critical factors, as they influence students' learning and should therefore be taken into account when designing educational materials.Instructors should not allow students to engage in lecture‐relevant and irrelevant messaging and discussion during video lectures as it competes with the other relevant information being presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In times of crisis, governments have strong incentives to influence banks' credit allocation because the survival of the economy depends on it. How do governments make banks 'play along'? This paper focuses on the state-guaranteed credit programs (SGCPs) that have been implemented to help firms survive the COVID-19 crisis. Governments' capacity to save the economy depends on banks' capacity to grant credit to struggling firms (which they would not be naturally inclined to do in the context of a global pandemic). All governments thus face the same challenge: How do they make sure that state-guaranteed loans reach their desired target and on what terms? Based on a comparative analysis of the elaboration and implementation of SGCPs in France and Germany, this paper shows that historically-rooted institutionalized modes of coordination between state and bank actors have largely shaped the terms of the SGCPs in these two countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that the current COVID-19 pandemic reveals and in a sense crystallizes a series of long-standing tensions about sovereignty that have become increasingly salient in the advanced capitalist democracies of the European Union. The spread of the pandemic led first to the activation of a conflict between a 'sovereigntist reflex' privileging the expression of national capacities and national self-reliance and a more 'perforated' understanding of sovereignty stressing the interdependence of peoples and states, both geographically and institutionally. As the response to COVID itself became more politicized we see the emergence of a second tension, between a libertarian 'reflex' supporting a residual state protecting liberties and facilitating individual choice and a sovereign-statist 'instinct', calling for an empowered guardian of the public good capable of ensuring collective security. A third tension relates to the seemingly growing opposition between a conception of sovereignty founded (and contingent) upon the will of the people and one in which the sovereign is, simultaneously, the discerner, defender and ultimate guarantor of the public good. After having mapped out these interwoven tensions and their main fault lines in general terms, the paper proceeds comparatively, tracking and tracing their (differential and specific) presence in governmental responses in two advanced capitalist democracies, France and Britain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the influence of climate on the transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in France. Ordinary, time-varying, and threshold regressions of the number of cases and deaths are run on weather and government variables. The main findings support the role of climate in Covid-19 spread. The results reveal that a rise in temperatures is negatively associated with reported deaths, while an increase in relative humidity or wind and a decrease in precipitations are negatively associated with confirmed cases. These weather variables appear statistically significant only during the winter season. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to show how qualified investors in cat bonds can offer adequate pandemic business interruption protection in a comprehensive public–private coverage scheme. First, we propose a numerical model to expose how cat bonds can contribute to complement standard re/insurance by improving coverage of cedents even though risks are positively correlated during a pandemic. Second, we introduce double trigger pandemic business interruption cat bonds, which we name PBI bonds, and discuss their precise characteristics to provide efficient coverage. A first trigger should be pulled when the World Health Organization declares a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC). The second trigger determines the payout of the bond based on the modelised business interruption losses of an industry in a country. We discuss moral hazard, basis risk, correlation and liquidity issues which are critical in the context of a pandemic. Third, we simulate the life of theoretical PBI bonds in the restaurant industry in France by using data gathered during the COVID-19 pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic continues to present new challenges at the frontiers of social risk. Its significant societal impact has prompted the consideration of alternative frameworks like compensation funds to better allocate the risks and impacts of COVID-related injury. Although there has been discussion about the potential of alternative liability structures for vaccine-related injury, there has been less analysis of the right way to compensate other types of injury, such as long-term illness, disability and death, associated with the SARS-CoV-2 virus. In France, a universal compensation fund for COVID-19-related injuries, designed similarly to asbestos-related schemes, was considered by the parliament. With an eye on scientific knowledge of the best practice in the development and operation of compensation frameworks, this paper analyses the design of such funds in Europe as applied to COVID-19 injury and considers the position of compensation funds in relation to tort law, private insurance and social security models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the context of increasing attention on museum sustainability, this research adopts a dictionary‐based, content‐analysis approach to measure the degree of sustainability disclosed in European museum annual reports and similar documents. The analysis is carried out through the lens of institutional theory, assuming that the presence of formal and informal regulations positively affects the level of sustainability in annual reporting practices. Furthermore, the paper discusses the level of sustainability disclosed by different types of museums and the impact of the COVID‐19 pandemic on the extent of sustainability‐oriented reporting. The article compares top public museums in the UK and France, the European countries where accountability practices are most deeply rooted for legal and cultural reasons, and where the most visited museums in the world are located. The findings show that the type of museum and the country significantly affect the ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) score, whereas mentioning COVID‐19 or the year of publication does not. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Paris-Lyon line is the busiest High-Speed Line in Europe and has been open to competition in open access since December 18, 2021. The main objective of the paper is to explore the effects for users with respect to price and frequency compare with the existing literature. The analysis is based on a large database (n = 1243) collected by web scraping from September 2019 to October 2022. The method relies on a descriptive analysis with a similar route without competition (Paris-Bordeaux) in the comparison group. The results highlight an increase of frequency by 15% and a decrease in price by 23%. The prices charged by the newcomer are lower than those of the incumbent (−30% to −50%). The comparison with the control route suggests a positive effect on price that moderates the economic catch-up effect following the COVID-19 pandemic in an inflationary context. More specifically, SNCF appears to take a wait and see attitude to competitive pressure from Trenitalia. It has moderated its prices since the new offer was introduced and has maintained its trains. • Competition have a positive effect on user welfare. • Barriers to competition underscore the importance of public regulation for success. • Incumbent adopts a wait and see attitude in response to competitive pressure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Migration management policies in many states have marginalized significant numbers of individuals on the basis of their precarious residency status, negatively impacting their health. This article looks at how three European states with high levels of contagion – France, Sweden, and the United Kingdom – adapted their migration management policies to the changed circumstances during the Covid 19 pandemic in which there was new pressure for prioritizing population health over other concerns. The analysis compares globally-recognized 'best practices' for migrant health during the pandemic with policies adopted by France, Sweden, and the UK – selected as prominent migrant-hosting states and that experienced high rates of Covid-19. The article draws on supplementary evidence through interviews with civil society organizations working directly with migrants living on the margins of society – what are termed here 'marginalized migrants' (MMs). As the article concludes, the national policies often fell below international 'best practices' such that migration management was often prioritized over population health despite the crisis. The perspective developed in this paper is important for understanding where migration control policies have been prioritized over public health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores a polemical debate that took place in France during the Covid-19 crisis, around two formulas: "health dictatorship" (dictature sanitaire) and "civil disobedience." It first analyses the arguments that justify their use; it then explores the verbal confrontation where Proponents and Opponents attack each other's stance, thus shedding light on important issues that underlie the discussion on the anti-Corona health measures: the nature and limits of democracy, the question of authority and obedience in a democratic regime. In the third step, the paper examines the actors behind the roles of Proponent and Opponent, namely, political figures and movements. A difference is drawn between the extremists and the candidates for the 2022 Presidential elections who supported the protest but did not adopt the formulas for fear of compromising themselves. However, the fact that the extremist voices and the voices of ordinary citizens merged in the same protest threatens to whitewash trends that used to be outside the Republican consensus and to bring the French closer to them. This risk calls for a better training in rhetorical analysis allowing the citizens to protect themselves from the manipulation of the authoritarian politicians who pose as the champions of Liberty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Science asserts that resilience at work can be developed, with evidence pinpointing to multiple resources that can be built through deliberate coaching, training and interventions. This paper presents a mixed-methods study exploring the effectiveness of group coaching using SPARK Resilience training, a model and a structured coaching protocol that have been administered in educational and workplace settings in face-to-face format and remotely. The study used a non-randomised controlled design with a pre-test and a post-test in a sample of French adults (N = 101 in the intervention group and N = 86 in the waitlist control group). The SPARK Resilience programme was administered online with 8 sessions spanning 4 weeks in April 2020, during the very early stage of the pandemic and lockdown in France. The results indicate beneficial effects of the intervention on meaning, resilience, positive affect, and perceived stress outcomes (d in the.40-.56 range), as well as weaker effects on negative affect (d =.35) and work engagement (d =.21). Moderator analyses suggest that the effects of the intervention on perceived stress and negative affect tended to be stronger for older adults. Participants reported high levels of satisfaction with the intervention and provided 151 responses to three open-ended questions that were coded using thematic analysis, revealing specific benefits of the intervention. The findings are interpreted within the pandemic context, showing the way resilience interventions can help people overcome unprecedented challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The global rise of populism and concomitant polarizations across disenfranchised and marginalized groups has been magnified by so-called echo chambers, and a major public health crisis like the COVID-19 pandemic has only served to fuel these intergroup tensions. Media institutions disseminating information on ways to prevent the propagation of the virus have reactivated a specific discursive phenomenon previously observed in many epidemics: the construction of a defiled 'Other'. With anthropological lenses, discourse on defilement is an interesting path to understand the continuous emergence of pseudo-scientific forms of racism. In this paper, the authors focus on 'borderline racism', that is the use of an institutionally 'impartial' discourse to reaffirm the inferiority of another race. The authors employed inductive thematic analysis of 1200 social media comments reacting to articles and videos published by six media in three different countries (France, United States and India). Results delineate four major themes structuring defilement discourses: food (and the relationship to animals), religion, nationalism and gender. Media articles and videos portrayed Western and Eastern countries through contrasting images and elicited a range of reaction in readers and viewers. The discussion reflects on how borderline racism can be an appropriate concept to understand the appearance of hygienic othering of specific subgroups on social media. Theoretical implications and recommendations on a more culturally sensitive approach of media coverage of epidemics and pandemics are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In terms of food consumption, sustainability dimensions are often conflicting with purchasing power and practical purchases. France lands, farms, imports, and consumes large quantities of fisheries and aquaculture products (FAPs). The pandemic affected both domestic and foreign FAP supply through restrictions on trade and fishing conditions. Numerous sale points offering FAPs were closed during the pandemic. This general context has likely questioned the role of consumers on environmental, economic, and social matters. The aim of the paper is to assess whether the Covid-19 crisis has been an opportunity for French consumers to align their consumption at-home with the environmental issues by favouring domestic producers, short channels, or eco-friendly products. Quantitative data on at-home ordinary household purchases in metropolitan France from 2017 to 2021 was used along with t-test methods. It seems that fresh FAPs consumption did not truly adapt to the domestic fish production in defiance of import restrictions and available surpluses. While fresh shellfish at-home consumption did not change significantly in 2020, salmon and cod are still widely favoured by French consumers at-home, although their French production is virtually non-existent. On the contrary, domestically produced fish species remains poorly consumed at-home. The abundant supply of fresh salmon initially intended for other markets has permitted to consolidate the dominant position of this species on the French at-home consumption market. Initiated by supermarkets and hypermarkets and followed up by consumers, the trend of purchasing pre-packaged fresh fish has been substantially amplified by the pandemic and seems to persist over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conspiracy Beliefs (CB) are a key vector of violent extremism, radicalism and unconventional political events. So far, social‐psychological research has extensively documented how cognitive, emotional and intergroup factors can promote CB. Evidence also suggests that adherence to CB moves along social class lines: low‐income and low‐education are among the most robust predictors of CB. Yet, the potential role of precarity—the subjective experience of permanent insecurity stemming from objective material strain—in shaping CB remains largely unexplored. In this paper, we propose for the first time a socio‐functional model of CB. We test the hypothesis that precarity could foster increased CB because it undermines trust in government and the broader political 'elites'. Data from the World Value Survey (n = 21,650; Study 1, electoral CB) and from representative samples from polls conducted in France (n = 1760, Study 2a, conspiracy mentality) and Italy (n = 2196, Study 2b, COVID‐19 CB), corroborate a mediation model whereby precarity is directly and indirectly associated with lower trust in authorities and higher CB. In addition, these links are robust to adjustment on income, self‐reported SES and education. Considering precarity allows for a truly social‐psychological understanding of CB as the by‐product of structural issues (e.g. growing inequalities). Results from our socio‐functional model suggest that implementing solutions at the socio‐economic level could prove efficient in fighting CB. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focusing on the French National Council for Statistical Information (Cnis), this paper offers an overview on the value and strength of the dialogue between producers and users of official statistics in France. Highlighting its specific contribution to shape official statistics in relation to sustainable development, it presents its role and original value added in the French context on a critical issue for the post-COVID era. If this case study proposes lessons to learn from this experience, its history, and transformation over time, it wants also to point out promising evolutions and paths for the future. In a context of crisis and pandemic, the need to produce quality and timely statistics adapted to the situation has showed its capacity to adapt and to confirm its critical role. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The goal of this paper is to study the electoral impact of crisis management policies. With this aim, we exploit a natural experiment during the COVID-19 pandemic in France to evaluate the effect of the lockdown on voting behaviour. In particular, the country has been divided in two areas, red and green, subject to a 'hard' and a 'soft' lockdown, respectively. To measure voting behaviour, before and after the policy, we rely on the 2020 French municipal elections: the first round took place before the introduction of the restrictions, while the second round was delayed after the end of the lockdown. We estimate a spatial regression-discontinuity-design model comparing electoral outcomes around the border of red and green areas both in the second round and between the two electoral rounds. The main results suggest that lockdown regulations significantly affected voting outcomes. First, in localities under a harder lockdown, the incumbent's vote share is higher. Second, voter turnout is larger where more stringent restrictions are adopted. These results suggest that lockdown policy mobilizes citizens and leads them to rally around the incumbent politicians. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies on price trends of seafood products in the medium run remain scarce. In this paper, we investigate changes in first-sale prices of fish sold in France over the last 25 years. Drawing on the index number literature, we construct monthly chained fish price indices which are free from seasonal fluctuations. Our empirical analysis relies on a dataset including 126 million transactions completed in all French fish markets from 1994 to 2020. We show that first-sale prices of seafood products have substantially increased in the medium run, more than the inflation rate, except during the economic crisis from 2007 to 2009 and recently in 2020 due to the Covid pandemic. However, those higher prices have not always led to an increase in sales revenue of fishermen because of the continuous decrease in fish catches. In particular, the economic situation of fisheries has substantially worsen since 2017. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The effective reproduction number (Rt) quantifies the average number of secondary cases caused by one person with an infectious disease. Near-real-time monitoring of Rt during an outbreak is a major indicator used to monitor changes in disease transmission and assess the effectiveness of interventions. The estimation of Rt usually requires the identification of infected cases in the population, which can prove challenging with the available data, especially when asymptomatic people or with mild symptoms are not usually screened. The purpose of this study was to perform sensitivity analysis of Rt estimates for COVID-19 surveillance in France based on three data sources with different sensitivities and specificities for identifying infected cases. Methods: We applied a statistical method developed by Cori et al. to estimate Rt using (1) confirmed cases identified from positive virological tests in the population, (2) suspected cases recorded by a national network of emergency departments, and (3) COVID-19 hospital admissions recorded by a national administrative system to manage hospital organization. Results: Rt estimates in France from May 27, 2020, to August 12, 2022, showed similar temporal trends regardless of the dataset. Estimates based on the daily number of confirmed cases provided an earlier signal than the two other sources, with an average lag of 3 and 6 days for estimates based on emergency department visits and hospital admissions, respectively. Conclusion: The COVID-19 experience confirmed that monitoring temporal changes in Rt was a key indicator to help the public health authorities control the outbreak in real time. However, gaining access to data on all infected people in the population in order to estimate Rt is not straightforward in practice. As this analysis has shown, the opportunity to use more readily available data to estimate Rt trends, provided that it is highly correlated with the spread of infection, provides a practical solution for monitoring the COVID-19 pandemic and indeed any other epidemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Emmanuel Macron was elected President of France in 2017 on a programme that promised to confront the structural antagonism between the country's social model and the liberalising thrust of European integration since Maastricht. His novel political offer combined supply-side reforms at home and the strengthening of the social dimension of the European Union, starting with the operation of European economic governance. And he saw simultaneous and explicitly linked action in both the domestic and European arenas—two-level reformism—as crucial in generating political support for this project. This paper assesses his government's success in realising these objectives, and asks what if anything the COVID-19 crisis changed. Focusing on the crucial case of unemployment insurance, it shows how pre-pandemic reform efforts were complicated by deeply embedded policy legacies and were insufficient to significantly enhance France's leverage at European level. COVID-19 generated some unanticipated momentum behind aspects of Macron's plans for Eurozone reform, but at the same time further complicated both the implementation and the politics of his domestic reform agenda. Overall the French case underscores the challenges of radically reorienting mature welfare states, European economic governance and their interaction, even in the presence of major endogenous and exogenous shocks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is part of a wider investigation which explores what happened to probation services in France and in Scotland during the national lockdown put in place as a response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Qualitative interviews with 29 French and 27 Scottish probation staff took place, the authors wishing to capture the lived experience of practicing probation at this unprecedented time. Whilst the study captures the initial disorientation of probation staff and a general lack of institutional and individual readiness for lockdown, it also documents adaptability, creativity and an optimism for what technology could offer state probation practitioners that is less visible in studies that were carried out following the easing of lockdown restrictions. It shows that the ways in which institutions and practitioners responded to the crisis was determined by institutional and cultural heritage, professional values and management practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Investigaciones Geograficas is the property of Universidad de Alicante, Instituto Universitario de Geografia and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

BACKGROUND France was one of the first countries implementing lockdown measures to mitigate the spread of COVID-19. Since families spent more time at home, household and care workloads increased significantly. However, existing findings are mixed in terms of whether this situation contributed to a more gender-egalitarian division of unpaid work. OBJECTIVE This paper explores the division of domestic work within couples across two different COVID-19 lockdowns and compares them to the out-of-lockdown period in France. We use the theoretical lenses of time availability, relative resources, and 'doing gender' to make sense of these changes. METHODS Our longitudinal analyses rely on an original panel study we collected in France between April 2020 and April 2021. It includes a sample of 1,959 observations (of 809 individuals living in couples). We employ the different types of restrictions to mobility and social life imposed during the first year of the pandemic as a contextual background, within which we measure the main drivers of change in the division of unpaid work within couples. We use individual fixed effect regression models to estimate changes in men's share of unpaid work by time, changes in work conditions, partners' educational gaps, and types of domestic tasks. RESULTS The first lockdown contributed to a slight rebalancing of unpaid work within couples. However, our results show an impact of both absolute and relative time availability on men's share of unpaid work and that the overall rebalancing of unpaid work hides highly gendered patterns. Indeed, we find men doing more shopping and women doing more child care. This gendered division of labour is slightly more prevalent among couples in which the man is more educated than his partner. CONTRIBUTION Our findings suggest the reaffirmation of traditional gender roles even during the exceptional first year of the pandemic in France. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Gestion et Management Public is the property of Association Internationale de Recherche en Management Public (AIRMAP) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The nationwide lockdown inflicted by the global COVID-19 disease epidemic and imposed during 57 days in France was not immune to fluctuations in atmospheric pollutant concentrations. A whole range of human activities has been suspended Monday 17 March 2020 in all French regions. Since then experiments are progressing to reflect the effectiveness of reduced emissions. In this paper, we looked at variations of pollutants prior to, during and after containment period. In a first step, we proved through experiments on eight air pollutants, how all daily maximum pollutants concentration have decreased during containment phase, apart from the ozone pollutant O3. This Ozone pollutant has indeed increased by 27.19% during lockdown period and kept growing by 21.35% as well right after deconfinement. Indeed, the maximum daily concentrations detected in different regions of France, have decreased by 18.18%, 37.14%, 20.36%, 9.28%, 44.38%, 5.1% and 44.38%, respectively, for the pollutants SO2, NO2, CO, C6H6, NOX, PM2.5 and PM10. Declining levels of other pollutants, however, were not sustained after deconfinement for NO2, NOX and PM10. We have reinforced these findings by classifying each pollutant according to the ATMO and AQI indexes, to better visualize their criticality throughout the three lockdown phases (Pre/During/Post). The family of air pollutant variables with their associated geographical sources was thereafter exploited to justify their approximate contribution to the daily mortality rates associated to COVID-19 across all French regions. However, more thorough study is still in progress to validate this finding. Finally, coming up to the abrupt changes in airborne pollutants experienced in this period, a question about future climate crisis was raised again. Whereby a weighting study has shown the current and very short-term French scenario (Status-Quo) in view of its current environmental path, the political responses made towards future climate change crisis and French investments done in this sense. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The paper's primary purpose is to assess macroeconomic conditions' impact on the sustainable development of transport companies in France, Germany and Poland from 2008 to 2020. The study is important for the stable development of the transport sector and for ensuring a balance between socioeconomic and environmental development. Design/methodology/approach: The research goal was achieved thanks to creating sustainable development indicators using the normalization method of variables; additionally, econometric models were developed using the Ordinary Least Square (OLS) and the Seemingly Unrelated Regression (SUR) methods. Findings: The analysis results indicate that in France, Germany and Poland, there is a positive trend in the sustainable development of transport companies. What is more, its high rates also remain at the time of the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic. Economic growth is an essential macroeconomic condition which positively affects sustainable development and its pillars. Research limitations/implications: The research limitations are related to data availability at the level of sectors, the selected research period, the selection of variables, and the normalization method. Moreover, the econometric methods were selected for estimating equations. Practical implications: The empirical implications include that the research results can help those in power (formulation of specific legal regulations and conditions for sustainable development of enterprises). Furthermore, those managing enterprises should focus not only on the company's internal situation but also on analyzing macroeconomic factors continuously. Social implications: Social development is crucial for the sustainable development of enterprises. Therefore it is necessary to take measures to develop human capital. Originality/value: The study's novelty is the comparative assessment of the sustainable development of the transport sector in France, Germany and Poland. In addition, it should be noted that modern statistical methods were used for the analyses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Evidence is accumulating of the negative impact of the COVID‐19 pandemic and related public health measures on mental health. In this emergent field, there has been little research into the role of risk perception on depressive symptoms and the contribution of health‐care resources to model risk perception and mental health. The aim of this paper is to describe the relationship between individual‐level perception of risk and depression, controlling for a set of confounders and for country‐level heterogeneity. A cross‐sectional and observational online survey was conducted using a non‐probability snowball sampling technique. We use data on 11,340 respondents, living in six European countries (Italy, Sweden, United Kingdom, France, Poland, Czech Republic) who completed survey questionnaires during the first months of the pandemic. We used a fixed‐effect approach, which included individual and macro‐level variables. The findings suggest that a high proportion of people suffering from depression and heightened risk perception is positively associated with reporting depressive symptoms, even if this relationship varies significantly between countries. Moreover, the association is moderated by contextual factors including health‐care expenditure as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product, hospital beds for acute care, and number of medical specialists per head of population. Investment in health care offers a concrete means of protecting the mental health of a population living under pandemic restrictions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recent global pandemic impacted stock markets worldwide, including developed and emerging markets. This paper investigates changes in volatility from a sample of daily returns of FTSE100, DAX and CAC for the UK, Germany, and France, respectively. We test the fitness of GARCH (1, 1) to model the volatility, measure the interrelationship between selected samples, and abstract the changes in volatility before and during the pandemic period. Used and analysed daily closing returns from 2000-01-01 to 2022-31-01 with Generalised Autoregressive Conditional Heteroskedasticity (GARCH 1, 1) and Value-at-Risk (VaR) with Normal and Mills approach. Data has been divided into three phasesbefore, during, and after the Covid 19 pandemic. The finding confirms persistent volatility for selected samples, the strong interrelationship among the German stock market and UK stock market than in France and German markets, dynamic changes in volatility patterns before, during and after the pandemic. The study results confirm the increase in normal volatility patterns after the pandemic. Further, finding exhibits the dynamics of volatility and response during the different four-phases, changing the degree of risk and prospective returns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This review article discusses how Alain-Philippe Durand's recent edited book about Francophone hip-hop gathers a plurality of voices and disciplinary approaches on hip-hop worlds, and offers thoughtful insights with regards to a number of issues often raised about hip-hop--related to race, migration or institutionalization of countercultural forms over different spaces of the French-speaking Atlantic--but also regarding the field of hip-hop studies itself. I address two main lines of discussion opened by the book and that could deserve further discussion in light of the current literature on hip-hop in the Francophone area. The first one is related to the contrasts and oppositions perceptible at the reading of this collection of papers, about the meaning of making hip-hop studies in a context of imagination of hip-hop as a "resistant" and countercultural form. The second is the issue of racial politics, imaginaries and identifications exchanged over the Atlantic space, and the role of Africa as an imagined or real land of reference in the construction of identities, art forms, ideologies and discourses in Francophone hip-hop worlds. I finally defend how the book's rich reflections raise many questions and future possibilities, both for the field of hip-hop studies and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims. Mitigation actions during the COVID-19 pandemic may impact mental health and suicide in general populations. We aimed to analyse the evolution in suicide deaths from 2020 to March 2022 in France. Methods. Using free-text medical causes in death certificates, we built an algorithm, which aimed to identify suicide deaths. We measured its retrospective performances by comparing suicide deaths identified using the algorithm with deaths which had either a Tenth revision of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10) code for 'intentional self-harm' or for 'external cause of undetermined intent' as the underlying cause. The number of suicide deaths from January 2020 to March 2022 was then compared with the expected number estimated using a generalized additive model. The difference and the ratio between the observed and expected number of suicide deaths were calculated on the three lockdown periods and for periods between lockdowns and after the third one. The analysis was stratified by age group and gender. Results. The free-text algorithm demonstrated high performances. From January 2020 to mid- 2021, suicide mortality declined during France's three lockdowns, particularly in men. During the periods between and after the two first lockdowns, suicide mortality remained comparable to the expected values, except for men over 85 years old and in 65-84 year-old age group, where a small number of excess deaths was observed in the weeks following the end of first lockdown, and for men aged 45-64 years old, where the decline continued after the second lockdown ended. After the third lockdown until March 2022, an increase in suicide mortality was observed in 18-24 year-old age group for both genders and in men aged 65-84 years old, while a decrease was observed in the 25-44 year-old age group. Conclusions. This study highlighted the absence of an increase in suicide mortality during France's COVID-19 pandemic and a substantial decline during lockdown periods, something already observed in other countries. The increase in suicide mortality observed in 18-24 year-old age group and in men aged 65-84 years old from mid-2021 to March 2022 suggests a prolonged impact of COVID-19 on mental health, also described on self-harm hospitalizations and emergency department's attendances in France. Further studies are required to explain the factors for this change. Reactive monitoring of suicide mortality needs to be continued since mental health consequences and the increase in suicide mortality may be continued in the future with the international context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background The emergence of COVID-19 triggered the massive implementation of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPI) which impacted the circulation of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) during the 2020/2021 season. Methods A time-series susceptible-infected-recovered (TSIR) model was used early September 2021 to forecast the implications of this disruption on the future 2021/2022 RSV epidemic in Lyon urban population. Results When compared to observed hospital-confirmed cases, the model successfully captured the early start, peak timing, and end of the 2021/2022 RSV epidemic. These simulations, added to other streams of surveillance data, shared and discussed among the local field experts were of great value to mitigate the consequences of this atypical RSV outbreak on our hospital paediatric department. Conclusions TSIR model, fitted to local hospital data covering large urban areas, can produce plausible post-COVID-19 RSV simulations. Collaborations between modellers and hospital management (who are both model users and data providers) should be encouraged in order to validate the use of dynamical models to timely allocate hospital resources to the future RSV epidemics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The CEE stock markets are more and more integrated in the European financial markets. The growth of the integration of financial markets favours the volatility and return spillover between them. The current study analyses the volatility spillover among the stock markets in the countries from Central and East Europe (CEE) and Germany and France with the aim to identify the possibilities of reduction of a portfolio risk. A special attention is granted to the analysis during the pandemic caused by COVID-19. The time-varying parameter vector autoregressive (TVP-VAR) model on which is based the methodology proposed by Antonakakis and Gabauer (2017) is used to estimate the evolution in time of volatility spillover. The empirical results obtained for the period January 2001 – September 2021 highlight the increase in volatility spillover between the countries analysed when the pandemic caused by COVID-19 was confirmed. The lack of volatility integration of the markets analysed enables the making of arbitrages in order to reduce the risk of a portfolio. The results obtained are important in the management of financial asset portfolios. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, several countries declared “states of exception,” that is, authorized legal devices that, in the face of circumstances deemed catastrophic, permit the implementation of extraordinary measures and the temporary suspension of some rights in order to restore the previous state of affairs as soon as possible. This paper offers a comparative textual analysis of the different states of exception declared in the USA, France, and Spain. I argue that these texts constitute a privileged site to explore how prevalent global political logics and mainstream discourses on illness are interwoven. Regarding the global political logics in play, I hold that these declarations constitute an instantiation of democracy’s autoimmune character; it attacks itself in order to protect itself. Regarding mainstream discourses on illness, I explore how illness is regarded as a threat to one’s self (by something seemingly other) and the notion that therapy must consist of securing the self’s triumph over anything seemingly other. This twofold analysis reveals that an aporetic dialectic between self and other—as regards politics and illness—operates in these declarations, most likely because it is, in fact, one and the same dialectic, upon which Western epistemology rests. Furthermore, I suggest that these texts reflect and promote these dominant logics, contributing to shape human relationships around the globe in a certain dangerous way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background This study aimed to describe the mortality excess during the three first epidemic periods of COVID-19 in all regions of France. Methods Two complementary approaches were implemented. First, we described the number of death of patients infected with or diagnosed with COVID-19 in health care (HC) and medico-social (MS) institutions. Then, we estimated general all-cause mortality excess (all ages) by comparing the mortality observed with the expected mortality. We used a daily number of death model according to a negative binomial distribution, as a function of the long-term trend in mortality (penalized spline function of time) and its seasonal variation (cyclic spline function). The model provided expected mortality during epidemic periods with a 95% credibility interval. Each region defined three epidemic periods, including the overseas territories. Results The two approaches were consistent in the most affected regions but there are major regional disparities that vary according to the epidemic period. There is an east–west gradient in the relative excess of deaths from all-causes during each epidemic period. The deaths observed in HC and MS institutions alone do not explain the excess (or deficit) of mortality in each region and epidemic period. Conclusion An analysis by age group according to the two approaches and a comparison of death specific causes could provide a better understanding of these differences. Electronic death registration system (mortality by medical causes) would allow a rapid mortality related estimation to an emerging pathology like Coronavirus Disease-2019 (COVID-19) but is still insufficient for real-time medical causes of death monitoring. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Soon after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the French government decided to still hold the first round of the 2020 municipal elections as scheduled on March 15. What was the impact of these elections on the spread of COVID-19 in France? Answering this question leads to intricate econometric issues as omitted variables may drive both epidemiological dynamics and electoral turnout, and as a national lockdown was imposed at almost the same time as the elections. In order to disentangle the effect of the elections from that of confounding factors, we first predict each department's epidemiological dynamics using information up to the election. We then take advantage of differences in electoral turnout across departments to identify the impact of the election on prediction errors in hospitalizations. We report a detrimental effect of the first round of the election on hospitalizations in locations that were already at relatively advanced stages of the epidemic. Estimates suggest that the elections accounted for at least 3,000 hospitalizations, or 11% of all hospitalizations by the end of March. Given the sizable health cost of holding elections during an epidemic, promoting ways of voting that reduce exposure to COVID-19 is key until the pandemic shows signs of abating. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unplanned events such as epidemic outbreaks, natural disasters, or major scandals are usually accompanied by supply chain disruption and highly volatile demand. Besides, authors have recently outlined the need for new applications of artificial intelligence to provide decision support in times of crisis. In particular, natural language processing allows for deriving an understanding from unstructured data in human languages, such as online news content, which can provide valuable information during disruptive events. This article contributes to this research strand as it aims to leverage textual data from news through sentiment analysis and predict demand volatility of pharmaceutical products in times of crisis. As a result, (1) a deep-learning-based sentiment analysis model was developed to extract and structure information from medicines-related news; (2) a framework allowing for combining extracted information from unstructured data with structured data of medicines demand was defined; and (3) an approach combining efficient artificial intelligence techniques with existing forecasting models was proposed to enhance demand forecasting in times of disruption. Additionally, the framework was applied to two examples of disruptive events in France: a pharmaceutical scandal and the COVID-19 pandemic. Findings outlined that using sentiment analysis allowed for enhancing demand forecasting accuracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The French people are among the most reluctant to be vaccinated against Covid_19. • The crisis management is partly responsible for this hesitancy. • We identified the mechanisms allowing to overcome this hesitancy. • Four strategies triggering these mechanisms are presented in a model. France is one of the most vaccine-hesitant countries in the world, including for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). After 10 months of restrictive measures and media coverage of the dangers of COVID-19, French attitudes towards a vaccine continue to deteriorate. The communication strategies of the government have not helped; in fact, they have made the situation worse. Empirical studies on the national strategy for management of the COVID-19 pandemic in France have shed light on the reasons for vaccine hesitancy. These studies have identified four pillars for the vaccination strategy: i) Communication regarding the importance of herd immunity, ii) making healthcare workers the focus of the vaccination campaign, iii) citizen mobilization and guaranteed consultations, and iv) access to free vaccines without delay. This paper discusses the evidence supporting this strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study contributes to the growing strand of research on the repercussions of the COVID-19 pandemic. The home confinement imposed as part of nationwide movement restrictions in many countries represents an exceptional setting for the study of intimate relationships. Did the lockdown reduce partnership quality among couples? In this study, we present some descriptive findings based on an online survey conducted during the first phase of the COVID-19 pandemic in France, Italy and Spain. Around 12% of those interviewed in the three countries reported that their relationship with their partner had worsened during the lockdown and about 2.5% intended to split up. In addition, we show that negative emotions - such as feeling lonely - and deterioration of income/work conditions are associated with a worsening of partnership quality. In all, we suggest that couples and intimate relationships have been sensitive to the lockdown, at least in Italy, France, and Spain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Projects such as the European Covid-19 Forecast Hub publish forecasts on the national level for new deaths, new cases, and hospital admissions, but not direct measurements of hospital strain like critical care bed occupancy at the sub-national level, which is of particular interest to health professionals for planning purposes. We present a sub-national French framework for forecasting hospital strain based on a non-Markovian compartmental model, its associated online visualisation tool and a retrospective evaluation of the real-time forecasts it provided from January to December 2021 by comparing to three baselines derived from standard statistical forecasting methods (a naive model, auto-regression, and an ensemble of exponential smoothing and ARIMA). In terms of median absolute error for forecasting critical care unit occupancy at the two-week horizon, our model only outperformed the naive baseline for 4 out of 14 geographical units and underperformed compared to the ensemble baseline for 5 of them at the 90% confidence level (n = 38). However, for the same level at the 4 week horizon, our model was never statistically outperformed for any unit despite outperforming the baselines 10 times spanning 7 out of 14 geographical units. This implies modest forecasting utility for longer horizons which may justify the application of non-Markovian compartmental models in the context of hospital-strain surveillance for future pandemics. Author summary: The US and European Covid-19 Forecast Hubs focus on metrics such as deaths, new cases, and hospital admissions, but do not offer measurements of hospital strain like critical care bed occupancy, which was essential for the provisioning of healthcare resources during the COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, forecasting support was only guaranteed on the national level leaving many countries to look elsewhere for valuable sub-national forecasts. In France statistical modelling approaches were proposed to anticipate hospital stain at the sub-national level but these were limited by a two-week forecast horizon. We present a sub-national French modelling framework and online application for anticipating hospital strain at the four-week horizon that can account for abrupt changes in key epidemiological parameters. It was the only publicly available real-time non-Markovian mechanistic model for the French epidemic when implemented in January 2021 and, to our knowledge, it still was at the time it stopped in early 2022. Further adaptations of this surveillance system can serve as an anticipation tool for hospital strain across sub-national localities to aid in the prevention of short-noticed ward closures and patient transfers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic caused by SARS-CoV-2, governments have adopted a wide range of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPI). These include stringent measures such as strict lockdowns, closing schools, bars and restaurants, curfews, and barrier gestures such as mask-wearing and social distancing. Deciphering the effectiveness of each NPI is critical to responding to future waves and outbreaks. To this end, we first develop a dynamic model of the French COVID-19 epidemics over a one-year period. We rely on a global extended Susceptible-Infectious-Recovered (SIR) mechanistic model of infection that includes a dynamic transmission rate over time. Multilevel data across French regions are integrated using random effects on the parameters of the mechanistic model, boosting statistical power by multiplying integrated observation series. We estimate the parameters using a new population-based statistical approach based on a Kalman filter, used for the first time in analysing real-world data. We then fit the estimated time-varying transmission rate using a regression model that depends on the NPIs while accounting for vaccination coverage, the occurrence of variants of concern (VoC), and seasonal weather conditions. We show that all NPIs considered have an independent significant association with transmission rates. In addition, we show a strong association between weather conditions that reduces transmission in summer, and we also estimate increased transmissibility of VoC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The role of fathers in Western societies has undergone significant change over time. However, their psychopathology remains largely misunderstood and difficult to identify. This study aims to explore the lived experiences of first-time fathers during the COVID-19 pandemic. Twenty-seven first-time French fathers were recruited for the study, which involved a narrative interview, the Rorschach projective test, the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS), and a semi-structured interview. Narrative interviews revealed several challenges faced by these fathers, including the pressure of paternal responsibility, the need to be actively involved in the prenatal activities and caregiving (haptonomy, skin-to-skin contact), and concerns about the future of their couple and family as a triad. The Rorschach tests showed numerous perinatal responses and difficulties in identifying phallic representations among the fathers. Additionally, the EPDS scores indicated that 15% of fathers showed signs of depression, while 52% exhibited signs of anxiety. This study also examines the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and its associated health context on creating the initial triad. Lastly, the case of one father is presented to illustrate the need for diagnostic tools to address the psychopathology of fathers, as narrative or semi-structured interviews have often fallen short of addressing this issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]