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Coronavirus: why are so many leaders and elected officials infected?

2020-03-29T12:42:30.546Z


In France as throughout the world, the political class seems more affected by the Covid-19 than the general population. Fault,


The beginning of a sad series in the political class? In three days, a former minister, Patrick Devedjian, and two mayors of rural communities lost their lives as a result of the Covid-19. The coronavirus does not spare politicians, it is even the opposite.

Since the epidemic started in late January, at least 18 MPs have contracted the disease. Of a total of 577 parliamentarians in the National Assembly, this represents a much larger proportion than for the population as a whole, even if elected officials are suspected of being screened more.

In government, they are three ministers or secretaries of state, out of 38, affected by Covid-19. Not to mention the many local elected officials contaminated. “It's complicated to have an exhaustive count. But according to the news that goes back to me, there are many, in a proportion larger than the population, "breathes André Laignel, vice-president of the Assembly of Mayors of France (AMF).

Seven ministers dead in Botswana

In Iran, the Covid-19 has already claimed the lives of 12 politicians or senior leaders, including two recently elected MPs. In Africa, seven ministers from Botswana were infected and the second vice-president of the Assembly in Burkina Faso died. The top of the state is also affected in the United Kingdom, where Boris Johnson announced on March 27 that he was infected. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who placed herself in quarantine after seeing a contaminated doctor, has - for the moment - escaped the knife of the positive test.

By their nature, their function leads elected officials and political leaders to frequent many more people than many other professions. “I think there are few professions with such a large number of contacts. A teacher will frequent other teachers and his students but often remotely, an employee will rub shoulders with the ten colleagues in his open space ... For a politician like a parliamentarian, there can be contacts with dozens of citizens or other elected officials, ”points out Jean Garrigues, political historian, interviewed by the Parisian. Hence an over multiplication of the risk of catching the disease ... and then of transmitting it.

"Supercontaminators" deputies

In the UK, the 650 MPs were even considered "superspreaders", to use the term used by a parliamentary source in The Sunday Times. That is to say people who can potentially infect dozens of other people. These British parliamentarians "spend half their week scattered across the country to meet the voters of their constituency, and the other half to fight in Westminster," summarized the interlocutor of the Times.

Did Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Prince Charles, also sick, meet one of them? We will probably never know. "With the pyramid of powers and the cumulation of functions for some of them, elected officials are led to meet different networks: at local to, national, even within the party, etc." points Jean Garrigues.

In France, the Les Républicains party is particularly decimated. Its president Christian Jacob was infected, as were six of its deputies and several of its local barons like Christian Estrosi, the mayor of Nice. As for the Minister of Culture, Franck Riester, he most certainly caught the disease in contact with members of the Law Commission, themselves infected.

The coronavirus in the middle of an election campaign

The Covid-10 health crisis affected French elected officials all the more since it occurred in the middle of the municipal election campaign. When it was not recommended, for the first time, to wash your hands and respect barrier gestures, we were then two weeks away from the first round, set for March 15. In this final sprint, very few candidates and their supporters imagined stopping tours of the markets and public meetings, set at 500 people maximum until the day before the election.

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On Wednesday, four days before the first round, André Laignel still held a sort of mini-meeting with less than 500 people. But respecting barrier gestures in these conditions has proven to be "impractical". "When you tell 500 people to come, they all want to approach you next," said the mayor of Issoudun, who obtained 78% for his re-election.

Others also recognized that they did not dare to snub a citizen who would come to them with outstretched hands to greet them. "Not shaking hands was a real problem for several days," recognizes Philippe Laurent, mayor of Sceaux and secretary general of the AMF.

VIDEO. Coronavirus: in the countryside, Anne Hidalgo "no longer kisses, regretfully"

Today, healthy policies must be confined, like all French people. Which some of them don't seem so obvious. "The idea of ​​my mission is not to stay locked up at home, while taking maximum precautions", slips André Laignel, according to whom "elected officials are the last resort, those who hold France and who ensure contact with fragile people ”. And the AMF vice-president remembers a lived example: "When an old lady calls the mayor to say that she has run out of medicines and that the pharmacy is 20 kilometers away, it is the mayor who takes his car. "

Source: leparis

All news articles on 2020-03-29

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