France reopens schools as Covid ICU patient numbers peak

Nursery and primary schools reopened on Monday across France after a three-week closure, despite the number of Covid-19 patients in intensive-care units reaching its highest since last spring.

French authorities say daily numbers of new infections have started to decrease, providing encouraging signs about the effect of restrictions that were imposed at the start of the month.

Schools have been closed since April 5 as the government decided to bring forward the date of Easter holidays to try to slow the spread of the virus.

Starting from next week, the ban on domestic travel will be lifted.

The night-time curfew, now in place from 7pm to 6am, will be maintained.

“We’re going to gradually reopen,” President Emmanuel Macron said while visiting a primary school on Monday in Melun, south of Paris.

“We will do this very slowly to avoid [the virus] to start spreading again.”

Mr Macron said he anticipated a better situation next month when a greater proportion of the population would be vaccinated and with the expected decrease in numbers of daily infections from the partial lockdown.

Asked by a child about the curfew, he said: “We will try to delay it a little bit because 7pm is early.”

France intends to gradually reopen non-essential shops, some cultural venues and cafe and restaurant terraces from mid-May.

Authorities are reporting more than 30,000 confirmed virus infections a day, down from about 40,000 earlier this month.

But French hospitals are still close to being overwhelmed, with nearly 6,000 critically ill patients in French intensive-care units. And the country has reported more than 100,00 Covid-19 deaths.

More than 14 million people in France have received at least one dose of a vaccine, about 26 per cent of its adult population.

Dr Eric Caumes, head of the infections and tropical diseases department at the Pitie Salpetriere Hospital in Paris, thought it was “not very reasonable” to start reopening the country now.

“Figures are not very encouraging,” Dr Caumes told news broadcaster BFM.

“They have only started to decrease in certain places, so saying that we’re loosening precautions despite figures not being down yet, we obviously have concerns.”

As schools open again, all French teachers and school staff will be given two virus tests a week to carry out at home, the Education Ministry said.

High school pupils can be tested at school once a week, with more tests eventually for younger students.

Parents taking their children to a Paris school on Monday morning felt relieved and worried.

“To be honest, we are not worried so much about the younger ones in primary schools,” Parisian Jerome Keff said.

"We are more worried about the other kids who are in the secondary schools, where I think the situation can be more complicated."

Middle school and high school pupils are attending online classes this week. They will be back in schools on May 3.

France sent all 12 million of its schoolchildren back to class from September until April, so many schools have not developed remote learning tools.

National learning websites were saturated or hacked when they pupils resumed online classes this month.

Some slowdowns were also reported Monday and about 1,000 people using a centralised network asked to reset their passwords, the ministry said.

But by the afternoon, 1.3 million people had successfully logged on for online class.

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War 2

Director: Ayan Mukerji

Stars: Hrithik Roshan, NTR, Kiara Advani, Ashutosh Rana

Rating: 2/5

The President's Cake

Director: Hasan Hadi

Starring: Baneen Ahmad Nayyef, Waheed Thabet Khreibat, Sajad Mohamad Qasem

Rating: 4/5

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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.

Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.

“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.

Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.

“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.

Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.

From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.

Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.

BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.

Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.

Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.

“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.

Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.

“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.

“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”

The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”