Alain Bauer is known to the general public as a professor of criminology (at the National Conservatory of Arts and Crafts). However, since 2001, it has also belonged to an international network of crisis management consultancy which brings together different experts, including epidemiologists.
Italy is in total quarantine, Belgium closes, in addition to its schools, its cafes and restaurants. But not France. How to explain these differences?
ALAIN BAUER. We are in the middle because since the start of the coronavirus epidemic, there is a choice that we do not want to make. We hesitate between treating the disease like a big flu - with conventional sanitary measures - or as something exceptional with new containment devices. Great Britain caricatured and brutally chose the first option, Italy the second. In France, we decided to go there gradually, pedagogically, step by step. But this in-between inevitably generates inconsistencies and difficulties.
So should we completely confine?
There is nothing worse than giving lessons to a government in times of crisis, telling it "this or that should be done". But the fact is that from one country to another, the epidemiological curves are the same. Nothing indicates that that of France will be less harsh.
The Italians precisely urge us not to do half measures, like them at the start before their number of cases ignites…
You have to hear them. The one and only element that disrupted the process of collective confinement in France is the holding of municipal elections. We must not hide it: Emmanuel Macron had the courage to try to suspend them, but the political class was unanimous in refusing him this option.
Newsletter - The essentials of the news
Every morning, the news seen by Le ParisienI'm registering
Your email address is collected by Le Parisien to allow you to receive our news and commercial offers. Find out more
Was she right?
No. It is hypocrisy and collective cowardice. Without the elections, the state could have taken far more necessary and broader decisions than closing the education space.
Should we understand that we should not go to vote?
Not at all! I will go and vote at home myself, as soon as the polling stations open. I folded and put my bulletin in my passport; I will wash my hands when I enter and use my own pen. Since the elections are maintained, we must go without hesitation for this freedom to vote. But that does not prevent the inconsistency from being noted: many people will find themselves in confined places to vote or to count. This is in contradiction with the messages broadcast daily. The same thing happens on TV sets. In Italy, the contact persons are placed two meters apart, without an audience. With us, you have three people bonded, and still the public. However, it is when the messages are contradictory that the population thinks that it can do without following them.
Can it last?
Not very long ! Just as the pandemic is inexorable, containment is inevitable.
However, specialists say that containment is a tool but not the absolute weapon against the epidemic. What is it used for ?
To slow the pandemic progression, to spread the use of our medical capacities which are not made for such an explosion of cases and to reduce the rate of contamination. At the very least, an infected person infects three others. If it is confined, it will be more like one or one and a half and so on. We are therefore talking about an effect which considerably smoothes the epidemiological curves. Another key point, quarantine is used to maintain the confidence necessary for the functioning of society. It is exactly like the Vigipirate or Sentinel plans: the essential of their mission is not to fight against terrorism but to reassure the population.
Is ours ready to accept a confinement that would be unprecedented?
French society is, collectively, much more advanced than its political class thinks. Citizens are intelligent and informed. And they are all the more ready to follow the instructions when they are clear and consistent.
VIDEO. Municipal elections: “I will vote, coronavirus or not! "