Because this pandemic, by its size, is a warning shot. Already, Chernobyl in 1986 and Fukushima in 2011, had warned of the irreversible and vast consequences of nuclear accidents. The ravages of the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004 and the epidemics that hit Africa reminded us of our vulnerability to the elements.
We were moved. But once the danger was over, we quickly forgot to draw the consequences. However, other disasters, accidental or not, can occur due to bacteriological, chemical and nuclear weapons that humanity is constantly accumulating. Added to this is the risk of indiscriminate use of science, such as the possibility of genetically modifying the human species.
These threats push us to organize ourselves at global, European and national level to avert or confront them. It means being aware of the dangers and being ready to act.
But in France, we thought we were safe from the pandemic when it was on our doorstep in Italy. Little attention has been paid to the strategies deployed by Taiwan or South Korea to curb it. Our unpreparedness appeared at the sanitary, administrative, political, democratic level.
Be ready to face
We must salute the courage and dedication of the caregivers when they lacked equipment. The absence of tests and masks whose stocks had not been renewed, led to confinement, putting the country to a halt. Contagion has been slowed. But we deplore, to date, 420 deaths per million people. It is less than Italy and Great Britain but it is more than Germany which deplores 95 or Greece, 15.
The overly centralized, overly bureaucratic mode of administration has shown its strategic and logistical flaws. At equivalent budgets, our healthcare system appeared to be less efficient than that of Germany. This raises the question of its organization and management. Just like that of an oversized administration whose decisions elude politics. The idea is to create a cell around the Prime Minister capable of studying strategies and coordinating actions in the event of an emergency.
On a democratic level, haste has won. The state of emergency, voted in haste, has considerably limited fundamental freedoms, opening the door to serious abuses. Some had to be corrected, such as the extension of the pretrial detention of persons presumed innocent without appearing before a judge.
The state’s intrusion into privacy, including prohibiting marriages, is shocking. Tracing patients raises the question of reconciling respect for private life and health security. Protect populations? Yes, but with respect for freedoms! It is still necessary to inform the population to make them responsible, to tell them the truth without hiding the difficulties from them.
If the limitation of fundamental freedoms worries, so do complaints against politicians. It would be as fatal to give up our fundamental freedoms as it is to seek scapegoats. The Senate Commission of Inquiry will need to learn from this period in order to build effective prevention.
It is now a question of coming together in harmony to raise the country economically and socially while preparing it to face the unpredictable.
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