Some meet up with friends for a picnic in the park. The others hastily pack their bags and look for a place to pretend that the rest of the world doesn’t exist. They don’t run away from war, they run away from fear. “Avoid panicking,” advises Emmanuel Macron the French. Just add two sentences later: “We are at war.” On the one hand, he wants to appease those who imagine their own death every night before falling asleep. On the other hand, he wants to shake up those who are worried only because their favorite bar is closed indefinitely.
The rumors were already on the weekend. “The military is closing the city,” said the baker. “You still have 48 hours to decide where you want to sit out the house arrest,” was forwarded via Whatsapp. In his speech, Macron then avoids the word that everyone expects: confinement. Macron relies on pathos and big words in disaster mode. He hopes for his strength to somehow turn the crisis into an opportunity. “The day after when we win, there will be no return to the previous one. We will be morally strengthened, we will have learned, »says the President. He doesn’t say anything as simple as “curfew”.
Apartments to suffocate
In France, the same rules always apply to all regions – without them being the same for everyone. “The aim is to limit contacts outside the home as much as possible” is the presidential instruction. This sentence sounds different in the sparsely populated regions of the Massif Central than in Paris. 21,000 inhabitants squeeze here on one square kilometer. Where space is lacking, the apartments become smaller, much smaller. Don’t go out the door, it doesn’t sound like pause and slow down, it sounds like suffocation.
Just get out of the city
The rail company SNCF confirms that the demand for train tickets increased significantly in the hours before the new travel ban. The direction was: out of the capital. Car rental prices are skyrocketing, flights are fully booked. “Le Monde” reports that it gets crowded in the resorts before the season. If you can, move into your second home. And surprisingly many can do that in Paris. Above all, it is the better neighborhoods where the apartments are now empty. On Tuesday morning, from the impoverished suburbs of Seine-Saint-Denis, television broadcasts pictures of people crowding in front of the supermarkets in their hundreds. The virus affects everyone equally, not its social consequences.
In France, President Macron and his ministers don’t just talk about war to evoke national unity.
But in addition to those who have made themselves out of the dust and those who are sitting on the sofa, there is a third group of people: they walked along the Seine on Sunday, they went on a trip with their children to the Jardin du Luxembourg, they squatted close together on picnic blankets and uncorked the champagne. These all-time casuals defend the reputation of the French in the world. They were admired by everyone when, shortly after the terrorist attacks of November 13, 2015, there was smoking and discussion outside the bars. Joy of life out of defiance and will.
Only a virus is not a terrorist attack. It is not something that the insane bring about with weapons and ammunition. It is something that you carry within yourself. In France, President Macron and his ministers don’t just talk about war to evoke national unity. “War” is simply the most impressive word for: Now finally be afraid!
And while Macron declared war, one of his loyal “soldiers” collapsed. Soldiers, marchers, that’s what they call those in France who are always loyal to their president. It is a martial language that does not only deal with the Corona virus has spread. One of Macron’s most important marchers was Agnès Buzyn, formerly a doctor, then minister of health, and finally Macron’s candidate for the Mayor of Paris.
Fear of every meeting
In mid-February, Buzyn left the Corona crisis manager’s job and fought for Paris City Hall. Macron wanted it that way. It almost doesn’t matter that she won only 17 percent in the first round of local elections on Sunday. Her admission is more important. “When I left the ministry, I cried because I knew what the tsunami was going to be like,” says Buzyn. From the start of her campaign, she “only thought of the corona virus”.
The second round of local elections is scheduled for June. Buzyn no longer competes. She says of her candidacy: «We should have stopped everything. The last week was a nightmare, I was afraid of every meeting. » If you stay in Macron’s rhetoric, then not only is war going on, then the whole army is in disintegration.
Created: 3/18/2020, 6:46 AM
–
