Face-off over face-masks: Europe’s latest north-south split

DURING THE pandemic, arguments have raged over the wearing of masks. This week in France, they spilled into violence. A bus driver in Bayonne was left brain-dead on Monday after being attacked by passengers. He asked them to wear masks, as French law requires on public transport. Five men refused to comply and assaulted him. A dispute over a measure supposed to protect people’s lives ended in a near-fatal assault.

The refusal to wear masks has been widespread in much of Europe. In February YouGov, a pollster, began collaborating with Imperial College London to monitor behavioural changes in response to covid-19. YouGov tracks the habits of 21,000 people across 29 countries, on a weekly basis. In February, as the pandemic began to spread from China, it found only a tiny proportion of people across Europe were wearing masks. By the end of June, though, mask-wearing had become widely accepted in Spain (86%), Italy (81%), and, despite this week’s attack, France (78%).