A week into coronavirus measures, shelves are full and physical distancing is taken seriously
One week into the national coronavirus confinement and parts of rural France are even more eerily quiet than usual.
The A6 Autoroute de Soleil that heads out of Paris to the south-east to join the A7 to the Mediterranean coast, normally a constant stream of traffic and frequently jammed in both directions, is now dotted with an irregular stream of lorries.
Tractors pull off the fields to hog the narrow roads and lanes because they are not expecting to meet any other traffic, forcing the occasional car to swerve; in the streets and shops and supermarkets people are body-swerving to avoid others.
But the demand for physical distance seems to have lessened the psychological space, and as people perform a little dance to put a few more centimetres between each other, many smile apologetically.