PARIS (Reuters) – A plane repatriating 250 French and European nationals from China’s Wuhan, center of an outbreak of a new coronavirus, landed at a military airbase in Istres, southern France, on Sunday.
Many countries are working with China to repatriate citizens from Wuhan and the surrounding Hubei province.
About 65 French nationals will be quarantined either at a holiday resort at Carry-Le-Rouet, in the south of France, or at a firefighters’ training center near Aix-en-Provence, Secretary of State for Child Protection Adrien Taquet told reporters.
Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said the French plane was carrying nationals of 30 countries, and that most non-French would travel on to their home countries.
The Czech Republic said it had five citizens on the plane and that they would fly on to Brussels to be taken home on a Czech plane.
Sweden said around 10 of its nationals were on the French plane and would be taken on to Sweden.
British nationals were on the French flight.
Reporting by Maya Nikolaeva and Sophie Louet in Paris; Additional reporting by Johan Ahlander in Stockholm and Robert Muller in Prague; Editing by Kevin Liffey
Source: Reuters.com
