The mayor of Beaune looks back on the health crisis as well as on the outpouring of generosity which manifested itself during the sale of the wines of the Hospices Civils. Alain Suguenot highlights “the incandescent hope of a better tomorrow”.
Communiqué from the City of Beaune of December 30, 2020:
Dear friends,
The year that has just passed is unlike any other. History books will remember a difficult period marked by reduced freedom of movement, distant families, annulled marriages, closed businesses and schools, interrupted careers, and, unfortunately, lost lives.
Today, the hope of a vaccine is naturally welcome like anything that could allow us to get our life back. However, the fight against COVID-19 is not just about science. The real fight is being waged day by day in our heads and in our hearts, as our City has been doing since the start of this epidemic.
It is often in difficult times that the cohesive strength of a city is discovered. From the month of March, the people of Beaune have shown their solidarity more than ever.
Never have such events witnessed so much to the generosity of our city in times yet conducive to individualism. Beaune knew how to join forces by showing that there was nothing stronger than the gift of oneself.
The historic record for the charity coin for the benefit of caregivers at the last Wine Auction is a great testimony to this. It is one of those weapons against which nothing can win: a humanist tradition rooted in the very heart of our city, the sense of the collective effort of its inhabitants and the incandescent hope for a better tomorrow.
The weather might be stormy but it can’t rain every day. The current context cannot be a brake on the major projects carried by the municipal team. Life must find its way back as soon as possible.
Obviously, barrier gestures should continue to be applied with the greatest rigor on a daily basis. However, we must not forget that health is a state of physical, mental well-being and is not just the absence of disease. Too long isolation would be, in my eyes, the worst advisor. It is therefore impossible for us to continue to close our eyes to the human, social and economic consequences linked to the health crisis.
What is happening is serious and sometimes unfair. In a country at a standstill, certain professions cannot afford to lose more than what they have already left behind when they have shown exemplary in the application of health directives.
The municipality will continue to give them the greatest attention and will remain by their side as long as the situation requires. I am thinking of our cafes, our hotels, our restaurants and our cultural places. These cannot remain closed indefinitely. “If not for culture, then why are we fighting? As Winston Churchill quoted in a country then in the throes of a “real war”.
The tumult of the year 2020 does not, unfortunately, come down to this global pandemic. Our country still has a heavy heart when thinking of the victims of the Nice attacks and the assassination of Samuel Paty, guilty of having courageously carried freedom of expression as one of the pillars of our democracy.
In this troubled period, however, everything prompts us to block out doubt and pessimism. The memory of the past year must serve our vigilance to condemn any action that would go against our unity and our values. Let us be worthy of all the sacrifices of the year 2020 whatever they are.
Dear friends, let us never let the shadows of today obscure the light of tomorrow. In life, nothing is to be feared, everything is to be understood. We never pay attention to everything that has been done, we only see what remains to be done. I can only thank you for the courage you have shown in 2020 before wishing you a happy new year 2021 to all of you. Continue to take care of yourself.
Alain SUGUENOT
Mayor of Beaune
President of the Agglomeration
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