France in row with Britain over discriminatory travel system

France has criticised Britain’s traffic light system as discriminatory after residents were left out of a quarantine-free deal with the EU.

From Monday, fully vaccinated US and EU travellers will be able to travel from any country on the amber list without having to self-isolate at home for 10 days.

Arrivals from France - which is on the so-called amber plus list owing to concerns over Covid-19 variants – are the only exception.

"This decision is discriminatory towards French people," French European Affairs Minister Clement Beaune told LCI TV.

"It is excessive and makes no sense in terms of health policy. It has no foundation in science.”

The UK singled out France because of the government's concern over the "persistent presence" of the Beta variant, which is believed to be more resistant to vaccines.

However, France said the approach is not based on science, with the bulk of the country’s Beta cases coming from the island of La Reunion in the Indian Ocean.

Mr Beaune said the Beta strain accounted for less than 5 per cent of Covid cases in France, and mostly occurred in overseas territories from where relatively few people travelled to the UK.

UK Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said on Friday it was essential to have painful restrictions to avoid the importation of potentially vaccine-resistant coronavirus variants.

He said the decision to impose further restrictions on French travellers was made by the Department of Health.

"I'm looking forward to the whole world being more accessible," he told Sky News on Friday.

"We're moving in the right direction. I know it's painful, but I think that generally speaking, your viewers probably want to see us be cautious rather than sort of gung-ho on this and that's exactly what we're trying to do."

He said the UK did not want to “take chances or risks” on French travellers.

He said that having done so well with the vaccination programme it would be "tragic" if the work were to be undone by a new variant.

"We are on the cautious side of that, I recognise that, but I hope that over time we will be able to regularise the position with France, but we will have to be a bit patient. Next week will be the first opportunity to look at that."

Mr Beaune also said he regretted that travellers from the EU could still not enter the US, even though American tourists can easily come to EU countries so long as they are vaccinated or have a negative Covid test.

"We should have kept reciprocity as a trump card up our sleeves at the European level," he said.

"Perhaps Europe overall should have been tougher in the negotiations."

France on Wednesday reported just under 28,000 new Covid cases for the previous 24 hours and 40 new deaths from the virus.

A total of 111,768 people have died from Covid in France, according to health authorities.

Notable salonnières of the Middle East through history

Al Khasan (Okaz, Saudi Arabia)

Tamadir bint Amr Al Harith, known simply as Al Khasan, was a poet from Najd famed for elegies, earning great renown for the eulogy of her brothers Mu’awiyah and Sakhr, both killed in tribal wars. Although not a salonnière, this prestigious 7th century poet fostered a culture of literary criticism and could be found standing in the souq of Okaz and reciting her poetry, publicly pronouncing her views and inviting others to join in the debate on scholarship. She later converted to Islam.

Maryana Marrash (Aleppo)

A poet and writer, Marrash helped revive the tradition of the salon and was an active part of the Nadha movement, or Arab Renaissance. Born to an established family in Aleppo in Ottoman Syria in 1848, Marrash was educated at missionary schools in Aleppo and Beirut at a time when many women did not receive an education. After touring Europe, she began to host salons where writers played chess and cards, competed in the art of poetry, and discussed literature and politics. An accomplished singer and canon player, music and dancing were a part of these evenings.

Princess Nazil Fadil (Cairo)

Princess Nazil Fadil gathered religious, literary and political elite together at her Cairo palace, although she stopped short of inviting women. The princess, a niece of Khedive Ismail, believed that Egypt’s situation could only be solved through education and she donated her own property to help fund the first modern Egyptian University in Cairo.

Mayy Ziyadah (Cairo)

Ziyadah was the first to entertain both men and women at her Cairo salon, founded in 1913. The writer, poet, public speaker and critic, her writing explored language, religious identity, language, nationalism and hierarchy. Born in Nazareth, Palestine, to a Lebanese father and Palestinian mother, her salon was open to different social classes and earned comparisons with souq of where Al Khansa herself once recited.