The opposition took over Friday from the indignation of caregivers at the shortage of masks in the coronavirus epidemic, the government for its part recalling that the decline in state stocks was due to decisions taken in the early 2010s .
"It's catastrophic, the masks don't come. Give us the real figures, recognize that the state is outdated, " launched Thursday evening before the Senate the boss of the group LR Bruno Retailleau. "No anticipation of this crisis," vilified the president of the National Rally Marine Le Pen, saying that "the government has adapted its speech to the shortage that existed" .
Several professions on the front line facing the pandemic (doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and firefighters on Friday) have reported mask shortages in recent days.
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While denouncing "unacceptable" thefts in hospitals, the government acknowledged on Wednesday "logistical difficulties", and assured the next day that 30 million had been delivered to pharmacies or healthcare establishments. The state says it has 100 million pieces in stock.
In an exchange on Facebook with the public on Friday evening, the Minister of the Interior, Christophe Castaner, underlined for the immediate future that "the whole world requests productions of masks. We are purchasing all the masks that are on the world market today, and there are many countries that are doing this. ”
"We are paying dearly for the delay in switching on the government," says the rebellious French leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon, while PS spokesperson Pierre Jouvet deplores an "absence of fair assessment" which "made us take a considerable delay ” .
The Minister of Health Olivier Véran points out to him the continuous decline in stocks for several years. "The basis is that we were a country not prepared from the point of view of masks for a health crisis due to a decision taken nine years ago," he assured Thursday evening in the Senate. "In 2010, there was in our country a state stock of 1 billion surgical masks" but "when I arrived at the ministry, there were 150 million" only, according to his explanations.
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Indeed in "2011, 2013, it was decided that this billion stocks were no longer essential as the global production capacities of masks were now intense, especially in Asia" , he explains. A document dated May 16, 2013 by the General Secretariat of Defense and National Security (SGDSN) recommends indeed dimensioning stocks, among others, to "manufacturing and supply capacities during a crisis" . However, "the health crisis has hit China, the leading producer country in the world" , underlines Olivier Véran. He insisted on the date of the change of doctrine: "2013, not 2020, 2013, it was another mandate" . The President of the Republic was then François Hollande and his Minister of Health Marisol Touraine.
For a socialist expert on health issues, "the lack of masks can in no case be attributed to decisions made 10 years ago, since stocks are perishable" . This expert points out "the change of doctrine in 2011 of Xavier Bertrand" , then Minister of Health, aiming to "reduce" "gigantic" stocks and "be ready to have them manufactured if necessary" . The 2013 doctrine cites an opinion from the High Council of Health dated July 1, 2011.
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In the entourage of Xavier Bertrand, it is emphasized that this opinion of 2011 "absolutely did not call into question the equipment strategy" of the carers and that there was also "no change" concerning their stocks of masks "neither in 2011 nor in 2012" . "We must get back into context" because "we had just thrown 95 million doses of vaccines" purchased by Roselyne Bachelot against the H1N1 flu in July 2009, and "which had been useless" , says AFP a fine connoisseur of the file.
But the current situation “is bound to raise questions. Was the precautionary stock sufficient? Shouldn't future strategic stocks be replenished? ”