How to get out of the crisis while avoiding social breakdown?

Pedro Guanaes Netto is digital manager of the Sovereign Republic.

Bruno Ledémé is responsible for the Labor Commission.

Patrice Hemet is responsible for the Culture Commission.

The belated awareness of the President of the Republic and of the government will no doubt have a major health impact. We have faced the greatest health crisis in at least a century and our health system, destroyed by decades of neoliberal ideology, will not be able to treat everyone. Many of our fellow citizens will therefore die from lack of access to care due to the policies implemented since the 1980s.

Probably more numerous will be the indirect victims of political decisions taken or not taken in the face of this terrible plague. For example, it will be people in need of urgent care who will not be treated because all beds are occupied by patients of Covid-19.

Many people like us have continued to sound the alarm during lead contamination disasters following the fire of Notre-Dame de Paris, the Lubrizol disaster or the water reprocessing plant in Achères. We have proposed common sense solutions to restore the level of resilience of the State in such circumstances: investment in infrastructure, reinstatement of the contingent, strengthening of our administrations, pharmaceutical sovereignty, real industrial policy on our territory… We note together, in the bitterness of the moment, how important all this is.

Today we call on each French person to mobilize, as much as possible, by staying at home, by providing assistance to those in need or by relieving our hospitals, to participate in this national struggle.

Tomorrow, when we have defeated the virus, new times will come. The economic system in which we have lived for the past decades is unlikely to survive. Already the markets are collapsing, the countries are regaining control of their borders, the price of oil is panicking. In this uncertain universe, the most fragile of our compatriots could be the next indirect victims of the Covid-19. We must now help those who will not be able to exercise their right of withdrawal, benefit from partial activity or telework. The State must urgently create a new universal allowance, access to which will be facilitated and which must be of an amount sufficient to enable everyone to cope with the crisis. But that will not be enough because certain statutes pose specific problems.

Self-employed people are left to fend for themselves today. The precariousness of their status exposes them, in the very near future, to sink into deep misery. The state must act quickly to compel the banks to suspend repayment of the loans taken out by these workers until further notice. The self-employed, who will lose their clients overnight but will still have to pay their charges, need an automatic compensation mechanism.

The culture sector will also be particularly impacted. In a country placed in quarantine, no more events can be held. It will be necessary to assure intermittent workers that the method of calculating the hours worked for the coming period will be done, at a minimum, on the basis of the previous compensation period. As for festival organizers, the State must allow them to make their insurance work as well as possible. Christophe Castaner should, for example, immediately declare a state of natural disaster on a national scale. In addition, the State can reassess the overall operating budget of local authorities up to the amount of the subsidies paid to associations.

The already fragile cinema sector must be able to benefit from an immediate derogation on the chronology of screenings: exhibition in theaters becoming impossible, it is essential that authors can immediately exploit their works on dematerialized platforms in order to limit the significant losses caused by the current situation. Likewise, the requirement to operate indoors to obtain the support account must be temporarily lifted until normalization.

Public service workers are also among the most vulnerable workers. Whether it is students who finance their studies or people whose vacations represent their main income, the closure of administrations risks pushing them towards ruin. It is therefore essential to continue paying these temporary workers as if their vacations were completed.

Lawyers will also be affected by a significant loss of income. Although recently mistreated by the government, they are nevertheless the cornerstone of our rule of law. Thus, if trials are held behind closed doors, they must be the guarantors of respect for the rights of the defense. Dematerialized pleadings (webcam) should be encouraged for all minor cases which do not require judgment with a warrant.

The ravages of neoliberal policies have had a terrible consequence: for some children, the only real meal of the day is the one they eat at noon in the canteen. The new universal allowance will therefore have to be increased for each dependent child. It is a question of the health of our children but also of their capacity to build their immune defenses so as not to become carriers, healthy or sick, of the virus.

Finally, we must think of the most fragile among us. People on the street must all be able to benefit from shelter without delay. It is a question of their health, but also that of everyone because to leave these people outside is to create as many potential vectors of the virus. The requisitions for empty accommodation, including the very large Airbnb of Paris, must be implemented without delay and a device for access to food and care guaranteed to the most disadvantaged.

Finally, we think of all these fragile French people stranded at home. The disabled, the elderly who cannot move and are particularly vulnerable to the Covid-19 must count on the solidarity of the Nation. A census of people in need must be carried out by the public authorities to provide assistance when necessary. Everyone could help by reporting a vulnerable person to the authorities and, if they wish and without putting their health or that of others at risk, provide assistance themselves. He would then receive means of protection against the virus.

The Covid-19 cruelly reminds us of one thing: we are all human. The virus makes no difference between the President of the Republic and the beggar in the Paris metro. He doesn't care about our skin color or our gender. To cope, we must be more united than ever and make solidarity our strength. As the Italian people teach us with eight days in advance by singing their hymn to the balconies, we must find ourselves and make Nation. The beautiful French Nation whose motto is freedom, equality and, today more than ever, fraternity.