I am going to continue a bit longer Jane, if I may, because I think you’re making a valid point, if we were living in normal times. But we are not. Many, many years ago someone who worked for me said “it’s not enough to be nice, you need to be effective as a manager” and I think in our current world too many people have wanted to be “nice”, to be “friendly”, to be “liked” and that sentiment has not served us well. It has made many politicians very, very reluctant to take tough decisions and I suspect we are going to learn that those parts of the world where they stood at the door in full PPE with a thermometer and said “no” are the ones who will be proved right.
It is not my job right now to be “friendly”. It is my job to be effective, to protect, to keep clean, to disinfect, to inform if they are taking less care than I need. Why? Because then they will stay safe while they are with me. And they will feel safe - which is as important - because they will see from the way I behave they matter to me.
This is no “little flu”. The postmortems are showing complete destruction of lungs. Cells that are no longer recognisable. Those who are still alive, some are going to be scarred and impaired for years, if not for life. This disease is not to be trivialised or mocked. It warrants the highest respect.
These people want to come on holiday away from all the stress of Covid. It will be clean, very clean and I won’t be shaking hands but other than that they need to be responsible for the choices they make and get on with their holiday. We have to live with this thing, be organised make a few changes but I’m too busy to lay awake worrying what else I can do .
And how will you manage if they fall sick while with you? Do you know what to do?
I will call the samu like I did with all the other medical emergencies that I have had here in 23 yrs.
Good point Anne. Thanks. Maybe it really needs to be no more complicated than that - even with all the “protocols”.
I’m much older than I look and I have lung problems. The last few months have been dreadfull, I won’t to move on now and try and get back to living a life without fear. We should all try and have some fun this summer whilst taking care.
Sorry to hear that Anne - that cannot be easy. Good point.
Sure. And I can do all that without a mask as long as I keep my distance.
Anne’s comment about contacting SAMU if someone falls ill seemed to be enough. I’m not now sure. This has just been posted on a gite owners forum I follow:
“Here’s one for you. A hypothetical.
Your guests are in residence in your property but one or more is now showing symptoms of COVID. They have five days left before departure and flying home and, you have new guests due three days later (assuming you are observing hour changeovers, but makes little difference in this case).
What do you do? What contingency plans do you have in place?
Portugal have instructed that one of the bedrooms is allocated to isolate in and that a ‘Quarantine Box’ is available in that room with various supplies including snacks, etc. but also a charged Portuguese mobile phone or a sim card so the guest/s can contact the Portuguese track and trace system. BUT how to deal with the hypothetical scenario of above?”
So, I now go back to my original question - does anyone know what is the French protocol if a guest becomes ill while staying? I suspect just phone SAMU is not, in fact, the answer.
What is all this about the idiot who brought the virus to your gite and the poor people who are going to lose their booking and where do you stand monetarily with regard to their refund?
It is a very good point and to be honest is not something we had even considered, in normal circumstances the guests would have to self isolate but that wouldn’t be possible in a rented property.
I’m not sure anyone has thought it through properly Tim. It is a potential nightmare. Anyway, I’d hoped someone might have wised up here, but looks like not. So I’ll start a conversation with our local tourist office and see where that gets me and maybe our medecin traitant.
Kinder and more accurate core temperature with a ‘small bulb’ rectal thermometer (but don’t leave his/her side in case the patient/guest forgets it’s in and rolls over, or sits up quickly: use your imagination, nurse! ). 
This is a matter for the health authorities who are in charge of controlling the virus. They are supposed to be working all this out. There are many frontaliers in our area, and during lockdown there was discussion about where they would be quarantined and some hotels had been requisitioned for this. What they are doing now I’m not sure. I found this in relation to CdG in Paris
*“A partir du 11 mai, toute personne française ou étrangère qui entrera sur le territoire national devra observer une période de quarantaine. Et si, en plus, elle présente des symptômes au Covid-19 ou si elle a été diagnostiquée positive au coronavirus, une mise à l’isolement pourrait avoir lieu pour une durée maximale de 30 jours”
Des lieux d’isolement à déterminer
Si ces individus devront de nouveau être confinés, une question subsiste encore. Les lieux pour les accueillir n’ont pas encore été définis. “On ignore pour le moment où se dérouleront les isolements, les quatorzaines. Quels seront les suivis médicaux pour les voyageurs concernés ?”
Our guests are generally reasonable adults so I would hope they would do the sensible thing and seek medical advice for the person, and look after them ( there is info in the gîte). If need be I would help them contact the health service here if they are not French, and ask the health authority whether a place had been determined for quarantine if they were too ill to travel. However, since all of our guests come from within a 6 hour drive I would expect that if any one of them started to feel ill they would want to head straight home.
Thanks Jane. This is helpful. Of course if quarantine is still in place ours won’t come as they are from the UK and coming by plane, so not quite so simple just to head home.
Zooming to friends in the UK earlier, they said they weren’t leaving England for time being as travel insurance is invalid at the moment until FCO changes advice on international travel - which is perhaps more important than the voluntary quarantine?
Our son and his family have decided in line with the FCO advice not to travel here in August this year. Whilst the advice might change before August, you can’t expect people to put their lives on hold waiting for Doris and his merry band of bandits to make their minds up (probably only to change it again) 
Well first post-confinement clients arrived and happily installed. We chatted to them in the garden, and had laid out all the info they might need inside. Now just waiting for the cheque to be put in our letter box - be nice to have something going in to our bank account for a change.
Let the season commence!
Very best of luck Jane. 
Good luck to everyone who is about to welcome guests, roll on the end of the season. 