France Rolls Out New COVID-19 Strategy As Cases Rise

French President Emmanuel Macron addressed the public Wednesday via a YouTube livestream from the Élysée Palace in Paris.

What Happened: Macron outlined France’s objective for the next stage of the COVID-19 pandemic — to reduce daily infections from 40,000 to under 5,000 — and the steps it would take to reach it, including a new lockdown, economic continuity policies and the launch of a new app.

Why It Matters: Macron declared a new nationwide lockdown, effective from midnight Friday until Dec. 1 at minimum.

Yet he said that schools would remain open and that work would still be allowed — though working from home is preferable wherever possible. 

France’s European borders will remain open, and the government will "massively deploy" a new contact tracing app called TousAntiCOVID, Macron said.

The app was developed by Orange S.A. (NYSE: ORAN) along with a consortium of public and private partners.

What’s Next: The news is of great significance to Orange, as well as to the European economy as a whole.

It shows that France is attempting to balance responding decisively to the recent surge in COVID-19 cases with keeping its economy running.

Orange shares were trading down 2.32% Wednesday afternoon to $10.50 at the time of writing.

The iShares MSCI France ETF (NYSE: EWQ) traded down 4.03% to $26.57, and the Vanguard FTSE Europe ETF (NYSE: VGK) traded down 3.72% to $49.65.