The controversy again.
On the ski resorts this time.
Emmanuel Macron did not escape this after warning on Tuesday that he would do everything to dissuade the French from going to places where they risk contracting the Covid.
So in ski resorts abroad, at least those that will be open.
By detailing Wednesday morning on BFMTV the range of sanctions that the government was studying, Jean Castex set in motion the administrative machine.
To
"prevent the French from going contaminated in the ski resorts"
of neighboring countries such as Switzerland or Spain,
"we are going to establish a quarantine"
with
"random checks at the border,"
said the Prime Minister.
The prefects of the departments concerned
"could order a seven-day isolation"
, he added, propelling the executive into a controversy mainly fueled by the right.
Never late in denouncing deprivation of liberty, the left and environmentalists could however have joined the concert of denunciations.
But it is true that the question of skiing in Switzerland is not at the heart of their concerns.
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“The Kafkaesque situation continues…
, lamented Émilie Bonnivard, LR deputy for Savoie.
The French will be able to go and buy their cigarettes in Andorra, but if they have skied there, they will be fined.
They will be able to go party in the south of Spain, but not go skiing for a day in Switzerland. ”
In the process, the presidents of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region, the departments of Savoie, Isère and Haute-Savoie appealed to the Council of State against the government's decision to close the ski lifts for the Christmas holidays.
For her part, Marine Le Pen jumped into the controversy to return to the issue of borders.
"We cannot control our borders to avoid the arrival of terrorists, illegal immigrants, traffickers, but as if by magic we can control the borders to prevent the French from going on a Swiss buttock ?!"
, quipped the president of the national rally.
For Emmanuel Macron, the Europe of skiing therefore remains to be built.
Faced with the Covid-19 epidemic sweeping the continent, it is in dispersed order and in a certain confusion that the countries of the European Union are trying to organize themselves to fight against the spread of the virus in the stations of skiing at the end of the year.
It was in the comfort of the administrative response that the State found the solution: to ban.
In France, the stations will remain open but the ski lifts will be closed.
In Austria, it is the reverse.
The resort hotels will be closed but the ski lifts will remain open.
As for the Swiss and Spanish resorts, they will remain fully open.
Hence the distressing question that seized the executive in the face of this lack of European harmonization: what if the French took the opportunity to go skiing abroad?
"It has been several weeks that the European partners have been trying to anticipate the problem that ski holidays can represent in the spread of the virus,
assures an adviser at the Elysee.
The idea is to dissuade the French and Europeans from going to the resort and to call for responsibility and common sense. ”
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The case would also go beyond the framework of the transmission of the Covid since this would also create a distortion of competition to the detriment of French stations.
now, what to do?
As since the start of the epidemic, it is in the comfort of the administrative response that the State has found the solution: to ban.
This opens up an unfathomable abyss to wind down decree with all the blows of your hands.
In the case of the French who would have gone to ski in Austria by plane for example.
Or by train.
Or for the control of frontier workers.
Without forgetting the French who would go to Swiss or Spanish resorts, but not to ski…
"The conclusion to be drawn is that I am not going to Switzerland"
, Prime Minister Jean Castex ruled on BFMTV.
Because the measure is above all dissuasive.
"We will have control measures to dissuade our fellow citizens from going to areas where there is a risk of infection,"
Emmanuel Macron warned Tuesday afternoon during a press conference at the Elysee with the first Belgian minister.
