The administrative court of Nantes suspended Friday January 14 in the morning, the prefectural decree on the wearing of the compulsory mask outdoors, in the 207 municipalities of the department of Loire-Atlantique. This decision comes the day after that of the Paris administrative court, which had suspended a similar decree.

The interim judge of the Nantes administrative court, seized urgently on Wednesday with an additional Thursday, considers that the measure of the generalized wearing of the mask “infringed the individual freedom of persons” in a way “disproportionate and inappropriate”.

He judges in his decision that the obligation to wear a mask can only be imposed if it is “limited to places and times of high population traffic” and to “appropriate hours”.

“The prefect has taken note of the interim order of the administrative court”, specifies the prefecture of Loire-Atlantique, which adds that “a new order is being prepared”. It must be published by Friday evening.

This is the third department in which the wearing of a compulsory mask has been suspended by the administrative court, after Paris on Wednesday and Yvelines on Tuesday.