This happened about a month ago but it passed me by without me noticing because of all the countries in the world, France is one that I will most likely never visit because there aren't very many locations in the country that can be at all considered budget-friendly. France is an expensive country just like most of the rest of Western Europe and for a traveler like me, this means it is well beyond my budget.
I don't really like to travel to places where I am going to have to stay in a $100 per night hotel everywhere that I go and unfortunately, that is how most of the countries in that part of the world are, and likely will be. There are a few hostels in the major cities like Paris, but even then you are looking at around $30 per night for a bunk in a shared dorm. In my mind this is too much money.
I am just happy to see France drop all the requirements for entry to the country related to Covid
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France was one of the first countries to develop a rather hardcore system of requirements to travel to the country and at one point they even restricted travelers from simply passing through their airports even if they were never going to leave the international terminal. There isn't much reason to NEED to pass through Charles de Gaulle Airport unless you are flying with Air France somewhere, so this didn't affect a lot of people that I know in a negative way, but it was just a seriously annoying rule to introduce to an already complicated flying situation.
They had something in place that was very vague called needing a "compelling reason" to travel to France at all, and this could result in your ticket being denied, even after it was paid for, because it could be deemed as not compelling enough that your ticket had a stopover in France. I've never flown with a French carrier, so I don't know how many people this would affect but I'm sure there was some frustration there.
France was one of the last European countries to reduce any of their Covid restrictions but now they have completely removed it and according to a friend of mine who is French and lives in France you don't need to provide any documentation at all related to Covid including whether or not you are vaccinated.
As it stands now, there are only 2 remaining European countries with Covid travel restrictions in place: The Netherlands and Spain.
Before anyone gets excited about a holiday to France please note that there are a couple of major problems that still exist there. For one thing, they are seriously plagued by what they call staffing issues and supply-chain issues and this has resulted in nearly 60% of all flights at Charles De Gaulle being delayed. Other airports in the country have experienced far fewer, but still existent delays or cancellations of flights. I don't pretend to actually know why this is I just know that it is a fact.
The second reason to be a bit apprehensive about jumping the gun on a flight to France is that they still have an Emergency Decree in effect which means that without notice the government can totally reverse their "zero requirement" policy between now and January of next year.
Masks are still required in public places in major cities but according to my friend that lives there, once you get out of the major areas these rules either cease to exist or are ignored by the population. I'll say what I always say about masks: If the locals are wearing them just do so as well - even if you are like me and don't believe that they actually accomplish anything at all.
So while I have no intention of traveling to France, perhaps ever, I will celebrate that they have finally ended the pointless lunacy of inconveniencing anyone that actually did want to go there and could afford to.
Happy travels!