⁍ French President Emmanuel Macron ordered a third of France’s population be put under nightly curfew to tackle a surging second wave of coronavirus.

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⁍ The curfew applies to the Paris region, Marseille, Toulouse, Grenoble, Montpellier, Rouen, Lyon, Saint-Etienne and Lille.

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⁍ Essential trips during curfew would still be allowed, Macron said.

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⁍ Anyone violating the curfews will be fined 135 euros ($159

– “It means that we won’t go to restaurants after 9pm, we won’t go round to a friend’s place, we won’t go out partying,” French President Emmanuel Macron said Wednesday after declaring a state of emergency and ordering a curfew for eight big French cities hit hard by coronavirus. “Unfortunately, these are vectors for the acceleration of the disease,” Macron said, per Reuters, adding that “we have to adopt stricter measures in order to completely restore control.” The curfew—which will last from 9pm to 6am in Paris, Marseille, Toulouse, Grenoble, Montpellier, Rouen, Lyon, Saint-Etienne, and Lille, where a combined population of about 20 million is affected—will be in place for four weeks, but the government says it will be extended by two weeks to Dec. 1. The virus has killed more than 32,000 people in France and infected more than 20,000 new cases per day, though Macron says the goal is to cut that figure in half to around 3,000 per day. “We’ll get through this if we stick together,” he said. “But a curfew will not stop the virus. People in public transport, at work, in schools. It’s not in places like ours where people gather in big crowds.”