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Assuming that the Covid-19 crisis functions as a revelation of underlying political logics, this article focuses on the regulation of access to nature by prefectoral decrees in metropolitan France, from March to May 2020. It proposes an exhaustive mapping of these measures and a qualitative analysis of the way they were justified. This research highlights the intensity of the control exercised over natural areas in the name of health emergency, revealing a regulatory frenzy and deep inconsistencies, which led to misunderstandings and contestations among society. It reveals the representations and values attached to natural areas and their recreational practices, symbols of freedom whose legitimacy does not seem to be granted. More broadly, the article allows to go beyond the sectoral approach of access to natural areas and to reinforce a fundamentally political conception of nature, an object around which many decisions and actions converge.