Maxime Tandonnet: "The Covid is stifling the major issues of the presidential election"

A keen observer of French political life and regular contributor to the FigaroVox, Maxime Tandonnet has notably published

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The waves of Covid-19 which have been linked for nearly two years have a dramatic side effect: that of crushing debates on all other subjects.

After the presidential and legislative elections of 2017 truncated by the "Fillon scandal", the epidemic is nipping the 2022 campaign in the bud.

Who is still talking about the explosion of public debt - 116.3% of GDP at the end of 2021 (90% in 2012) - that our children and grandchildren will have to repay?

Where has unemployment gone?

Maxime Tandonnet

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Who is still talking about the explosion of public debt: 116.3% of GDP at the end of 2021 (90% in 2012) - this public debt that our children and grandchildren will have to repay? Where has unemployment gone when the number of people registered with pole emploi and required to look for a job (categories A, B, C) stands at 5,577,800 of which 3,307,400 people are without any activity (category A)? These huge numbers, once considered unbearable, have become routine. Just as forgotten, the vertiginous rise in the trade deficit which marks the industrial decline of France: the absolute record of 9 billion was reached in November and the cumulative deficit during the past year amounts to 77.6 billion d 'euros.

And the poverty which affects 13.1% of the population (about 9 million people) in the sense of

while the number of RSA beneficiaries approaches two million?

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Even talk about security has difficulty mobilizing an anesthetized opinion.

And yet, assault and battery reached 70,000 in 2019 against 50,000 in 2013, accompanied by an even more dramatic increase in sexual assault: 54,800 in 2020 against 26,800 in 2012.

The increase in migratory flows to France broke all records in 2019 with 274,700 first residence permits and 177,222 asylum seekers registered. Despite the relative statistical lull in 2020 linked to Covid-19, the phenomenon does not give any sign of respite. But who is he interested in right now?

Worst of all: behind the hypocritical screen of a 95% successful baccalaureate, the symptoms of a vertiginous collapse in the country's educational level accumulate: 10.6 errors for a dictation in 1987 but 17.9 errors in 2015 at the same dictation, according to national education estimates). According to the 2019 Timss ranking, French students rank last in the European Union in mathematics and second to last in the OECD (ahead of Chile). The French are only 23rd in reading and reading comprehension (PISA). The percentage of low-level students in geography history increased from 15 to 21% between 2006 and 2012, and that of high-level students from 10 to 6%. But who does not laugh today at this terrifying bankruptcy at the source of all the others?

The day France finally emerges from its torpor or its fearful enslavement, once the great panic has dissipated, the presidential and legislative elections of 2022 will undoubtedly be over for a long time.

Maxime Tandonnet

And who really cares about the French democratic divide?

Public speech is discredited as never it has been since 1945. 39% of French people are suspicious of politics, 23% disgust and 77% in total have a negative image according to the annual CEVIPOF survey on trust.

This rejection of public affairs results in gigantic abstention rates: 65% in the regional and departmental elections of June 2021.

On all these fundamental subjects, the necessary assessment and explanation will not take place. And the day when France finally emerges from its torpor or its fearful enslavement, once the great panic has dissipated, the presidential and legislative elections of 2022 - largely conditioned and neutralized by the fear that benefits the leaders in place - will undoubtedly be long overdue.

Then it will be too late - except for the tears.