Coronavirus: France warns against summer vacation travel

France's government is warning the French that they shouldn't expect to travel far for their vacations this summer because of the coronavirus pandemic

Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne, a deputy minister at the French Foreign Ministry, said Wednesday that the external borders of Europe's visa-free Schengen area, incorporating 26 nations, will remain closed “for several weeks, for several months.” He said that for summer vacationers, “a trip of several thousand kilometers (miles) is, for sure, excluded.” The comments are the latest warning from the French government that vacationers need to scale back their expectations this summer

The government is advising people to vacation in France instead, in part to help the tourism sector battered by the pandemic.