For the last few years, digital nomadism has been more and more popular. To be able to work from anywhere, as long as you have an Internet connexion, seems like a dream job. How does the crisis impact those travel lovers in their day to day life? Pierre Touzel, graphic designer, shares his confinement experience in France.
Where were you born? What is your resident country and how long have you been living there?
I was born in Seclin, a small town in the North of France. My city of residence has been Vancouver, in Canada for the past 10 years. I became Canadian 5 years ago.
At the time, I was working in the event industry. I moved here for the 2010 Winter Olympic Games of Vancouver when I got a job at VANOC (Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games).
As a digital nomad, you can work from anywhere, how do you usually enjoy this freedom?
It is not only a freedom. My clients expect from me to be able to work at any time from anywhere. It is self-discipline. My advantage is that travelling is not an inconvenience for me.
How does the COVID-19 crisis impact your day-to-day life? How is it an advantage or an inconvenience to be a digital nomad during confinement time?
Today, I am stuck in France, so I am in a different time zone than usual. It is a new adaptation regarding my clients living in Canada. Confinement forces you to adopt a routine and for instance, it helps me focus on my work every morning so I can do other things in the afternoon. My days are more structured now than before the quarantine. It is an organization that I was not used to, at least not that similar and repetitive every day.
Clearly, being a digital nomad is an advantage compared to people who are required to be physically present at their job. I won't say there is no difference now because my own clients are affected. But when you are a digital nomad, you have to be able to adapt to every situation, so I am adapting to this one.
Have you cancelled some travels you had planned? How did you make the choice to stay in France during the confinement?
I had some travels planned in Europe. I cancelled them all right before the confinement. I also had to give up on going back to Canada.
The choice to stay in my birth country was not an easy one. I live in Canada, a developed country with a very good sanitary structure. Here in France, I can't get Social Health and France is an important contamination centre so I was a bit worried. But the biggest argument for me was to avoid being in places with big gatherings like airports, avoid taking planes and of course to stay close to my family during this particular time.
You also are an elected member of the assembly of French citizens abroad. What role do you play in the assistance offered to French people abroad?
In my country of residence or anywhere else, my role is to be aware of rumours regarding people who would be in difficult situations because of the Coronavirus crisis and to relay that information to deputies and senators of French citizens abroad who will then inform the French government. This is to assure that all support measures are put in place, like the question of repatriation for 130 000 French citizens stuck abroad for instance.
At this time of year, most tourists are in southern countries like South-East Asia, North Africa or South America, there were a lot of people stuck there because their flights have been cancelled or modified with connexion issues. Our goal was to help them come back to France so they can be with their loved ones and not stay indefinitely sometimes in a country where they wouldn't have access to health care.
How do you apprehend the “After Coronavirus”? Do you think about going back to Canada?
I am not apprehensive because we don't know what is going to happen from one day to the next. It is very difficult to even think about it.
Personally, when I watch movies, documentaries or images on television and I see a crowd gathering or people shaking hands, it feels a bit weird. Something I am dreading with is to find myself surrounded by a lot of people in the street. What will it take to make me, to make us confident again, to meet and gather like before? When you fight an invisible enemy, you cannot really know when you defeated him. That is something I fear, wondering how we will be able to trust again and finally be able to say “That's it, it's gone, we are safe, we can go out now.”
I think more and more about going back to Vancouver. Time is running, I miss my community and I also have expenses there like my rent. I can't even plan my trip back, everything is too abstract at the moment. But we are lucky enough to be in a situation where we know that there won't be any destruction of infrastructures and eventually we'll go back to our home where everything has stayed the same, and hopefully so our loved ones.
