"
I admit having trouble explaining that we can go to a Sephora but not to a museum,
" reports government spokesman Gabriel Attal in March 2021, on the eve of the third confinement.
This sentence sums up the trial and error that has occurred in almost two years of managing the health crisis.
To read also Guillaume Tabard: "From failures of execution to faults of communication"
Responding to questions from readers of Le
Parisien
to defend the government's strategy to fight Covid, Gabriel Attal concedes this inconsistency.
The communication test is failed.
This episode, commented severely on social networks, is far from the only one.
Between communication failures, reversals and trial and error,
Le Figaro looks
back on the best of the worst of the management of the pandemic by the Macron government.
Agnès Buzyn, the regrets after the resignation
After affirming on January 24, 2019, the same day when three first cases of Covid were officially recorded in France, that "
if
the risk of importing cases from Wuhan is moderate, it is now practically zero because the city is isolated"
, the minister resigned from the government on February 16 to stand for the Paris municipal election.
After a disappointing third place in the first round, she retired, and confided, in an interview with
Le Monde
, to be "
devastated
".
Published on the first day of confinement, the day after the president's declaration of war on the virus, the interview reveals a terrible confession from the former minister: "
When I left the ministry, she
assures us,
I was crying because I knew the tsunami wave was ahead of us.
I left knowing that the elections would not take place ”.
The words are controversial, the government is embarrassed.
“
I was very tired,” she
regretted a few months later
.
From the uselessness of the mask to the ticket for not wearing in public space
This is undoubtedly the most commented turnaround.
"
Do not wear masks
", hammered the Director General of Health Jérôme Salomon on March 17, 2020. "
Totally useless
", "
not necessary
", "
it is useless
", the members of the government repeat in unison in early spring that the mask is useless in the general population.
To read also From their "uselessness" to a possible obligation ... the about-face of the executive on the masks
On July 20, the mask becomes compulsory in closed places throughout the country.
No
mea culpa
except for the Director General of Health who will recognize a clumsiness in September of the following year.
The masks, "
myself, I wouldn't know how to wear them
"
While the government is working to explain that masks are unnecessary, spokesperson Sibeth Ndiaye presents a funny justification.
“
Masks aren't necessary for everyone, and you know what, I don't know how to use a mask.
I could say I'm a minister, I put on a mask.
But in fact I don't know how to use it, because using a mask involves precise technical gestures, otherwise we scratch our nose under the mask, and well in fact we have the virus on our hands, otherwise we have a use that is not good and that can even be counterproductive
”.
The Covid in the resort: closure of ski lifts, opening of slopes
In the midst of an epidemic wave at the end of November 2020, the government decides to close the ski lifts, leaving the slopes and stations open.
This compromise to prevent clusters in ski resorts will also be subject to mockery, but will especially be deplored by mountain professionals.
Essential ... and non-essential products
It is an image that will also be remembered: that of cellophane shelves or barred with construction site ribbons in supermarkets. "
It's big nonsense!"
“, People rebelled in the stores. The government issued an executive order to determine which "
essential
" or "
non-essential
" product stores could sell. "
It's a mess,
" said boss Michel-Édouard Leclerc.
A German newspaper also notes this “
Absurdistan
”, to use the now-
accepted
expression, where it was necessary to know whether socks, briefs and mascara were essential or not.
“
From the brilliant minds of our bureaucrats this idea sprouted that hairdressers should be closed, but not sex shops;
that children under the age of three wore essential clothes, but not their elders, etc.
”, quipped Jean-Christophe Buisson, deputy director of Figaro magazine.
After covering books in supermarkets, bookstores become essential
Books were initially considered non-essential.
Then in February 2021, after a general mobilization of booksellers and the publishing industry, the government ended up recognizing, by decree, that bookstores are so-called “
essential
” businesses, just like food brands.
"I wouldn't say it was a failure, I would say it didn't work"
In a big interview in November 2020 on the TF1 antenna, Emmanuel Macron stumbled over a question from Gilles Bouleau: "
Stop Covid is a bitter failure [...], the application has served to alert until this day 493 people
”.
"
I would not take this figure to say that it is a failure, it did not work
", answers the president.
This sentence has been widely used on social networks to comment on all the government's decisions on the management of the health crisis.
The 30-person gauge in places of worship
While the government had promised at the end of discussions with religious leaders the resumption of worship in early December 2020, the President of the Republic announced on November 24 a gauge "
strictly limited to 30 people
", regardless of the mass either celebrated in a chapel or a cathedral.
Leading to the rare anger of the Archbishop of Paris.
Read also Prohibition of worship: when the Catholics woke up
“It's a totally stupid measure that contradicts common sense (…) as usual, we were listened to but not heard. There, once again, we are laughed at! That's enough! We must stop infantilizing ourselves! We are not taken seriously. It's finish!".
Christmas 2020:
"
We cut the Yule log in half, grandpa and grandma eat in the kitchen
"
This time, it is not a member of the government who is creating the controversy, but Professor Rémi Salomon, president of the AP-HP establishment medical commission. While the epidemic wave of November is still raging, the doctor warns on
Franceinfo
that grandparents must be protected at all costs. “
If I pass the virus on to grandpa and grandma, it's worse than anything. How am I going to live this afterwards?
», He asserts. "
We cut the Yule log in half, grandpa and grandma eat in the kitchen and we in the dining room,
" he adds.
This sentence sums up the surrealist turn of the organization of the end-of-year celebrations in the midst of a pandemic.
Another injunction provokes controversy, which will be repeated for Christmas 2021: "
We must save Christmas!"
".
The third confinement, "
inside with mine, outside as a citizen!"
"
After a solid experience of two confinements, the French are experiencing a third confinement in spring 2021 quite different.
No need for self-authorization to go shopping for essential products within so many kilometers from home.
However, the certificate is maintained for interregional trips.
And the re-containment does not affect all departments.
But there was
“clarification”
and
“simplification”,
reassures Jean Castex
.
The government strings its communication around a slogan: "
Inside with mine, outside as a citizen!"
".
To read also "Inside with mine, outside as a citizen": the government is trying a new slogan to clarify the barrier gestures
Immediately, this campaign is derided on social media.
The Covid, a virus that can be caught standing
Faced with the Omicron surge and record rates of new daily contaminations, the government recently decided on health measures that caused a lot of reaction on social networks.
Ban on popcorn in cinemas, ban on snacks on the train, and above all, ban on eating or drinking standing in bars.
In transport there will be a tolerance for young children and water consumption, hastened to specify the Ministry of Transport.
"
No one in [the president's] cabinet of intelligent patented [the president] whispered to him: 'Popcorn and Snickers, and the ban on standing coffee as the virus spares sitting citizens, that's not okay. to do it… We will pass for baltringues!
“, Noted with humor Alexandre Jardin in our columns.
The vaccine, "
not compulsory
"?
To read also François-Xavier Bellamy: "The vaccine pass or the continuation of the disintegration of the rule of law"
"
I said it, I repeat it: the vaccine will not be compulsory
".
While the text establishing the vaccine pass should enter into force in mid-January, the statement of the President of the Republic on Twitter on December 27, 2020 resurfaces, relayed more than 15,000 times.