Consultant and political analyst, Mathieu Slama works for several media, notably Le Figaro and Le Huffington Post. He has published
The War of the Worlds, Reflections on Putin's Crusade Against the West
, (ed. De Fallois, 2016).
To discover
Michel Houellebecq: "A civilization which legalizes euthanasia loses all rights to respect"
Let us go back for a moment. Last December, the government affirmed that there would be no health passport, while the head of state specified that he wished to favor conviction and education in his vaccination strategy. A few months later, the government put in place the health pass for places and events involving "large gatherings", but indicated that this pass would not be necessary for daily activities such as restaurants, bars, the cinema. On July 12, Emmanuel Macron however extended the health pass to daily activities.
Back to the present time. On July 21, Castex forcefully affirmed, on TF1: "
Our entire strategy since the start of the crisis (...) has consisted in ensuring that the children of France are educated as much as possible. (...) So we are not going to say now, if you are not vaccinated, especially since some can not do anything about it, we will deprive you of school. So no health pass in schools
”. A week later, Jean-Michel Blanquer, on France Info, however explained that in secondary school, in the event of contamination, "
unvaccinated students will be evicted, but not vaccinated
", adding: "
It is obviously a strong incentive to be vaccinated
".
In effect, this new measure would mean that unvaccinated children would be forced to follow distance education, while those vaccinated would remain in the classroom.
The measure mentioned by Jean-Michel Blanquer was taken and announced without any vote, no consultation of any parliamentary or advisory body, no democratic procedure.
Mathieu slama
Each time, the government has promised that it will not further damage our rule of law and our fundamental freedoms.
And each time, he broke his word.
This permanent denial of political speech makes it not only inaudible but also and above all suspect in every way, since no promise is kept and words no longer have any meaning.
There are obvious flaws in Jean-Michel Blanquer's reasoning, such as the fact of justifying his decision by the fact that "
when you are vaccinated, you do not risk infecting others, whereas if you are vaccinated, you do run that risk
”. If the fact of being vaccinated does indeed reduce the risk of contamination, the fact remains that this is still quite possible, as several studies have shown. On the other hand, children are hardly at risk of covid. It is therefore surprising that a measure as radical as distance from the classroom makes any sense from the point of view of the logic of care and prevention. But let's leave this debate to scientists, because the real issues are not there.
The measure mentioned by Jean-Michel Blanquer was taken and announced without any vote, no consultation of any parliamentary or advisory body, no democratic procedure. It appears as the prince's act, announced as part of an information morning in the most casual manner possible. Such an undemocratic method on such a serious subject, involving the lives of entire families, is, so to speak, revolting and unworthy of the rule of law. But it only reflects the government's way of doing since the start of the crisis, where the most serious decisions and the most harmful to our Constitution were taken by a single man, Emmanuel Macron, advised by an obscure unelected Scientific Council. and in the most total opacity.How to justify such a democratic eclipse when it is the very meaning of the word citizenship which is being called into question?
We must realize the violence of such a measure, which means that some schoolchildren will be forced to study by force at a distance while their classmates, because they have been vaccinated, will have the right to be present in the class during the course!
Mathieu slama
This decision is also the sign of an inexorable democratic regression that seems to have no end. One by one, the most inviolable taboos have been violated. Containment first, this idea that to fight an epidemic, people must be locked up in their homes and the freedom to come and go a very strictly supervised and supervised exception. The curfew then, this war measure which involves an omnipresent police arsenal to control, from a certain time, the comings and goings of people. The closure of all places of sociability, also, sign of a society which, seized by fear, decides to deprive its citizens of the places of meetings and exchanges essential to any social life. The obligatory mask,which makes each citizen an anonymous and faceless character and which prevents the very idea of a chance encounter. The health pass, finally, which enshrines in law the discrimination of a category of citizens who become, as Giorgio Agamben wrote, “
second-class citizens
”. And now we are applying this health pass to secondary schoolchildren, and therefore applying a discriminatory measure to the children themselves.
We must realize the violence of such a measure, which means that some schoolchildren will be forced to study by force at a distance while their classmates, because they have been vaccinated, will have the right to be present in the class during the course! And how can we be sure that distance courses will be followed in the right way, under the right conditions, with careful monitoring by the teacher? The right to education, equality between schoolchildren, non-discrimination between citizens: all these founding principles of our Republic are shattered. This is the latest act of our sanitary unreason, where we threw all our most sacred principles into the fire in the name of the primacy, over all the rest, of biological health. The same obsessivesanitary hygiene do not take any account of the psychological and mental health of people who are in turn confined, isolated, desocialized. How not to worry about the psychological impact of the de facto dropout of secondary schoolchildren? You have to be disconnected from all reality not to worry about it.
And as for the extension of the health pass, we can legitimately ask the question of the feasibility of such a measure.
So we will ask teachers to check the QR Code of each child as soon as a case of contamination is proven?
The health pass could be activated depending on the existence or not of a case of contamination in a school?
How can we come to such a level of legal vagueness and bureaucratic madness?
Are we going to appoint, in each establishment, an officer in charge of verifying the serological status of children, a sort of health police officer dedicated to secondary schools?
The unvaccinated, children and adults alike, become outcasts whom the state has the mission to punish and discipline.
Mathieu slama
The sanitary pass society is a discriminatory, liberticidal and disciplinary society, to use the term introduced by Michel Foucault. The unvaccinated, children and adults alike, become outcasts whom the state has the mission to punish and discipline. The health pass is a "nudge" tool whose sole purpose is to make the life of the unvaccinated impossible, and thus to bring them towards vaccination. It is the negation of any idea of informed consent and rational adherence. From now on, we constrain, we oblige, we punish, including by indirect means, known as "
nudge
”, Like the health pass. The unvaccinated are exposed to desocialization, dropping out of school and even dismissal since the government now intends to leave companies the possibility of dismissing their employees who refuse to be vaccinated. This society of generalized discrimination destroys the foundations of our social contract in defiance of all our most essential principles.
The government is playing a dangerous game. He had probably not expected that a protest movement, admittedly still embryonic and uncertain, would manifest itself so strongly last weekend, in the middle of summer. It is obvious that the statements of Jean-Michel Blanquer will fuel the protest and strengthen it. One might be surprised that a measure such as confinement has not raised any real large-scale dispute, while the health pass seems to arouse stronger opposition. What the government has not seen is that there is, to this extent, such a betrayal of all our republican principles, such a violation of our principles of liberty and equality, such a breach of equality between the citizens thatit could only arouse anger and therefore revolt in a country already immensely fractured. The government's current rhetoric of blaming and demonizing the unvaccinated is dangerous. It pits citizens against each other, further fractures the country and contributes to an increasingly detestable climate. Hatred towards the unvaccinated reaches unsuspected levels, when a ministerial adviser indicates off to a major daily that the government's objective is that the unvaccinated have "an increasingly detestable climate. Hatred towards the unvaccinated reaches unsuspected levels, when a ministerial adviser indicates off to a major daily that the government's objective is that the unvaccinated have "an increasingly detestable climate. Hatred towards the unvaccinated reaches unsuspected levels, when a ministerial adviser indicates off to a major daily that the government's objective is that the unvaccinated have "
a life of shit
”or even when a columnist for a 24-hour news channel says very seriously that“ you
have to go and get the unvaccinated with your teeth and handcuffs if necessary (sic)
”. Proponents of sanitation claim they are on the side of reason, even though they act and think in the most irrational way possible. It is therefore high time to come to your senses.
