Marc Sanchez is president of the Syndicat des Indépendants (SDI).
Olivier Véran's announcement to close bars and restaurants in Aix-Marseille, to close earlier elsewhere, to color the map of France in 50 shades of red, illustrates an inability to organize the country to face the epidemic of Covid-19.
Companies with fewer than 10 employees volunteer to protect their customers and staff, and designating bars and restaurants as major vectors for the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic is nonsense.
The second wave has been approaching since early September with the resumption of normal life: schools, offices, metro… bars and restaurants are therefore not responsible for this situation.
Neither the desire to meet again, barrier gestures respected.
While it is legitimate and necessary to impose rapid administrative closure sanctions against any offending establishments, the position of stigmatizing a sector is irresponsible.
Such an attitude casts doubt on the relevance of the efforts made, of the investments made to curb the spread of the virus.
If the efforts made have no effect or if the public authorities do not recognize them, what is the use?
Why not close Bercy since the minister has tested positive?
The Assembly, since we are regularly informed of positive cases?
In this anxiety-provoking climate, it is entire sectors, already heavily penalized in the second quarter of 2020, which risk to change definitively.
The question may arise of a recurring stigmatization of the same ... A new confinement is what most feared companies, and more particularly small businesses, structurally penalized by a fragile cash flow.
Using once again the weapon, in principle the ultimate, of the general and undifferentiated closure of establishments, even in a defined geographical sector, even in a targeted profession, represents a thunderclap in the sky already heavy with threats for craftsmen and traders. Proximity.
For the latter, as for any company, visibility on the outlook for the activity is fundamental for investments, restocking, raw material orders, hiring, etc.
In this anxiety-provoking climate, it is entire sectors, already heavily penalized in the second quarter of 2020, which risk to change definitively.
A new wave coming to swell the ranks of the 100,000 closures of establishments envisaged by the OFCE by the end of the year.
The domino effect on SME suppliers would be devastating.
Finally, and without wanting to enter into sterile controversies, we are entitled to ask ourselves what new organization of our health system has been thought of since the first wave?
The domino effect on SME suppliers would be devastating.
Do you close bars and restaurants, do you open your arms to private clinics and liberal doctors to bring them into the system?
Are you closing bars and restaurants, are you extending the solidarity funds?
Are you finally canceling social charges and are you planning to review the funding of these companies which so far have asked for nothing and which you bring to their knees with a very comfortable defeatism: after all, the strongest will survive, right?