Consultant and political analyst, Mathieu Slama works for several media, notably Le Figaro and Le Huffington Post. On January 20, 2022, he published
Farewell to Liberty with
the Cité Presse
editions .
“
Me, I'm not for pissing off the French. I plague the administration all day long when it blocks them. Well there, the unvaccinated, I really want to piss them off. So we will continue to do it, until the end, that's the strategy. (…) And that is the immense moral fault of the antivax: they come to undermine the solidity of a nation. When my freedom threatens that of others, I become irresponsible. An irresponsible person is no longer a citizen.
"
With these words of unprecedented gravity (spoken during an interview with Le
Parisien
), Emmanuel Macron has taken an additional step in breaking with our democratic and republican principles which has been at work for two years now. With these words, the Head of State removes the little ambiguity that remained on the policy pursued towards the unvaccinated since the implementation of the health pass last July, which is indeed a policy of forfeiture of citizenship. . Deprivation of citizenship: deprive millions of French citizens of their inalienable rights because they have committed the crime (not provided for by law) of not being vaccinated, and condemn them de facto to social death.
"
I really want to piss off
": there is something very disturbing in this familiar phrase, a form of jovial and cruel aggressiveness which totally contradicts the very mission of a President of the Republic.
Mathieu slama
"
I really want to piss off
": there is something very disturbing in this familiar phrase, a form of jovial and cruel aggressiveness which totally contradicts the very mission of a President of the Republic. None of his predecessors, even the most uninhibited, had allowed himself such a slippage. There
is also something chilling about the
“
until the end
” that concludes the sequence: until the end of what? How to imagine that a President of the Republic threatens his own fellow citizens in this way, his own people?
But the essential sentence is elsewhere. "
An irresponsible person is no longer a citizen
". With this sentence, Emmanuel Macron betrays our entire republican heritage by affirming, in defiance of any sense of the State and the general interest, that the unvaccinated are no longer citizens. This way of designating millions of French citizens as enemies of the nation is unprecedented in the history of the Fifth Republic. It throws a harsh light on the incredible democratic regression which overwhelms us, and the most spectacular illustration of which in recent months is the concept of a health pass, which has become a vaccine pass by the simple presidential decision taken within the framework of a council. opaque and anti-democratic defense.
By presenting himself as the President of a party of the French against other French people, Macron breaks with a fundamental republican principle.
And he committed an unforgivable - and irreparable - moral fault.
Mathieu slama
As he moved into public life, the very idea of the pass became commonplace, normalized.
However, it germinates the forfeiture of citizenship induced by the words of the Head of State, because it implies something absolutely serious and unprecedented: that access to full citizenship is now conditional on a vaccine.
The health or vaccination pass is not a "
pass
", but a citizenship permit.
If you do not have your pass (or if it is not "
up to date
»), You are stripped of your full citizenship and can no longer access places and events of social life, even places of culture and hospitals. An incredible break with the principle of the indivisibility of the Republic and of citizenship, a principle that the former rights defender Jacques Toubon brilliantly and courageously recalled during the debates around the deprivation of nationality in 2016: “
This project amounts to engraving in stone with our higher standard a fundamental division of the French into two categories, against the spirit and the letter of the Constitution. Citizenship is as indivisible as the Republic. Its fundamental principle is that citizens are equal and that there are no citizens less citizens than others.
And if the Republic is one and indivisible, then the President of the Republic is the President of all French people, whatever their opinions, their origins, their convictions, their life choices. By presenting himself as the President of a party of the French against other French people, Macron breaks with a fundamental republican principle. And he committed an unforgivable - and irreparable - moral fault.
For two years, without many being moved by it, we have changed our political model and left the shores of the Republic, with its constitutional standards, its inalienable rights, its separation of powers, its conception of citizenship, its principle of freedom. , to enter a new regime where, to paraphrase the Head of State himself, citizens have duties before having rights, where individual freedom is erased in favor of the collective interest, where the he state of exception becomes the new standard of governmentality. The very idea of freedom has become relative, transformed into a "
permission
" granted by the government according to our good behavior. However, freedom cannot be "
allowed
":it is inalienable and consubstantial with citizenship. "
Men are born and remain free and equal in rights
”: such is the fundamental formula of our republican edifice which is in the process of collapsing in general indifference. Any French citizen is free. Whatever. Wherever it is. Whatever he does. And if by misfortune he breaks the law, then it is up to justice, independent of power, to decide whether he should be punished or not. We are living a major political revolution which should worry all Democrats and Republicans committed to the rule of law. However the voices which rise against this new political order are very rare, and even more among the moderates. What a huge defeat!
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" Unworthy "," astonishing "," vulgar ": the exit ofEmmanuel Macron on the unvaccinated ignites the political class
The words of Emmanuel Macron are not a "
slippage
". It is probable, even certain, that the interview was reread by the Élysée before its publication. They are part of a strategy that has been that of the government since the start of its vaccination campaign, which is to divide, divide, hysterize society and build a scapegoat figure in the person of unvaccinated citizens. , accused of all evils, convenient expiatory victim of a government which thus exempts itself from any responsibility in the management of the crisis. But even more, for Emmanuel Macron it is a question of throwing millions of French people to his electorate who plebiscites an authoritarian and coercive policy towards the unvaccinated, and therefore of remobilizing his electorate in view of the first round of the election. presidential.Indecent electoral cynicism and - for once - irresponsible.
But now, it seems that the words of the Head of State do not pass.
In any case, the indignant reactions continued to be expressed last night and this morning, in all political quarters.
And on social media, outrage has never been stronger, including among some supporters of the President who admit considerable misconduct and clumsiness.
Believing himself allowed everything after months and months of outbidding and crossing red lines, Emmanuel Macron committed a major political fault by showing himself as a huge divider and by making remarks unworthy of his office, disturbing even in his own camp.
In other words, the Head of State may have compromised, by the violence of his words, his re-election as head of the country.