Emmanuel Hirsch is Professor of medical ethics at the University of Paris-Saclay. He has just published the collective book
Pandémie 2020
-
Ethics, society, politics
(editions du Cerf).
Confinement, curfew, tomorrow perhaps health retention and judicialization of social behavior that disrespects the rules set up in the name of the national emergency.
The preferred method in the political management of the pandemic is characterized by one constant, that of the necessary repression by refusing to consider that our society is capable of responsibility.
The martial speech is no longer audible 4 months after the release of a confinement which was announced by the government authorities as the return to freedom.
Doubt and even more mistrust of the relevance of public decisions affect both the admissibility of moralizing admonitions and the credibility of authoritarian prescriptions.
Because the pandemic is here, and for a long time.
The Covid-19 Scientific Council did not wait for its alert note of September 22, 2020 to propose forward-looking lines of action that have been the subject of political arbitrations on many questionable points.
The alterations, from the summer, relating to the wearing of the mask, the disorganization of the test systems as well as the insufficiencies in the follow-up of the contaminated people did not contribute to reassure where already the coherence and the effectiveness of the public authorities were to the test.
To read also:
Curfew: "Freedom and responsibility become words without value in France"
That it is imperative today to decide on binding measures to the point of reviving the concerns and irreparable suffering of the early days of the pandemic, is a sign of defeat.
If we can blame it on the inability to collectively understand the magnitude of the challenges facing us under current circumstances, the Head of State could have had the humility to recognize that health governance has not been up to the stakes.
At a time when confidence had to be regained in order to restore this indispensable link between civil society and those who politically decide its destiny in these times of peril, the military strategy appears somewhat derisory.
Because what is at stake is our social pact, the unity of the nation which risks not resisting erratic decisions which subject us to social practices opposed to what makes society.
The Head of State could have had the humility to recognize that health governance has not been up to the challenges
Unlike the sudden and unprecedented nature of the confinement decreed on March 17, the meaning and scope of the curfew (apparently less in their immediate impact on our individual freedoms) are assessed from a personal and collective experience that has marked us.
We learned from these months of pandemic our attachment to the life of the most fragile among us, the intelligence and the vitality of a democracy usually relegated to our concerns, but also the disaster caused by inattention to the complexity of reality, this incompetence to understand how to mobilize and unite a society.
That the public authorities have given up organizing feedback at the national level which would have enriched us with useful knowledge today is another finding that questions.
However, this has not hindered reflections supported by critical analyzes of imperfectly anticipated decisions and accompanied from the point of view of their consequences.
To read also:
"The curfew has a strongly traumatic dimension in the collective memory"
Beyond the procedural aspects of the organization of the curfew, the President of the Republic especially made strong commitments on October 14 concerning the mitigation of its economic impact on professionals already affected by sometimes uncertain restrictions.
Everything suggests that this provision was retained for lack of being able to opt for a choice that would not have been accepted by society, that of a new confinement.
From a socio-economic point of view it seemed unthinkable because unsustainable.
It is therefore not a reasonable decision, proportionate to the risks of an epidemic outbreak which could turn out to be uncontrollable, but a politically admissible measure.
The choice is that of a lesser evil with which it will be advisable to be satisfied, temporarily.
As long as health professionals are able to support a long-term commitment, when they are already today exhausted and overwhelmed by the weight of a misunderstood burden.
The few obligatory encouragements which are granted to them do not compensate for the support whose deficiencies they denounce.
We must admit the dodging in the hierarchy of economic arbitrations which sometimes surprise us by their arbitrary character.
On the one hand, we are solemnly reminded of the seriousness of the health situation and the inevitability of procedures which can only be binding.
On the other hand, we have to admit the dodging in the hierarchy of cyclical arbitrations which sometimes surprise us by their arbitrary, even improvised character.
Is it respecting society to consider it incapable of grasping the complexity of circumstances and issues that make us collectively vulnerable to uncertainty, and even more to a phenomenon that creeps into the privacy of social life? ?
To the point of dispossessing us of a force of resistance or, on the contrary, of arousing a desire for dissent, the first expressions of which we observe?
It is obvious that we do not know anything about the evolution of the pandemic, whatever the epidemiological prospects, the therapeutic promises or our desire to believe that we will overcome this crisis, or even that we will overcome it by transforming our world.
What is certain is that no public policy, apart from the Taiwan model sometimes mentioned, has been able to find the answers adapted to the scale of the perils, despite palliative or compensatory measures such as this. is the case in France from the point of view of economic solidarity.
Since our capacities for the present prove to be limiting, to the point, I think, of considering, if necessary, other measures restricting public freedoms even more than the curfew, is it not time to reconsider the modalities of governance of this health crisis?
To read also:
Curfew: "The confession of weakness of Emmanuel Macron"
Democratic confinement is not compatible with the demand for accountability of civil society forced to respect the rules rather than be associated with a decision-making process whose effectiveness depends on its mobilization.
Here we are at the limits of what the public authority can impose, regardless of the repressive threats.
He must decide on a different understanding of the political management of this health crisis, otherwise, as we know, it will cause a political crisis when unity and cohesion are more essential than ever.
We must democratize the governance of this pandemic, restore a healthy democracy that has been ravaged by so much disdain towards it for months, finally arbitrate fair and transparent choices within the framework of an imperative because indispensable dialogue.