Sound system and vests in the colors of the central union, the CGT 93 took its ease this Tuesday noon in front of the prefecture of Seine-Saint-Denis. At lunch break, while workers walk past them, observing them with an eye that is sometimes amused and sometimes indifferent, about twenty people each hold up a sign with a letter written on it. The overall message? “Free masks!” “
“It’s a matter of public health and social justice,” explains Hervé Ossant, secretary general of the CGT 93. Two masks a day, that makes a budget of 200 to 300 € for a family of four. It is a prohibitive price for many families of Seine-Saint-Denis who live in precariousness. For them, it’s a bit like asking them to choose between buying a mask or a wand. “
“If we manage to finance a recovery plan of € 100 billion, we can well set up a social component”
But financing the free masks for all would it not be an abyss for the State? “If we manage to finance a recovery plan of € 100 billion for businesses, we can set up a social component. For us, the only solution is for the State to requisition, for example, the goods leaving the two mask factories in Seine-Saint-Denis, Bondy and Blanc-Mesnil. “
A radical means which, unsurprisingly, did not obtain the support of the prefect that the Cégétistes officials met in the wake. “He reminded us that the State had bought € 2.4 million worth of masks which were distributed to the most fragile people such as holders of State Medical Aid in Seine-Saint-Denis. But it is too little. “
“Many students wear the same mask all day long”
Present alongside Hervé Ossant, Laurence Barre, from CGT Education 93, opines the chef. “We absolutely need masks for the students. It has been found that many, for economic reasons, wear the same mask all day and sometimes even for several days. Meanwhile, the cases of Covid are increasing in schools, classes are closing, and even an entire high school (Editor’s note: Jean-Rostand in Villepinte). “
Laurence Barre also regrets that the educational community has not received enough masks. “In Seine-Saint-Denis, half of the schools have not been sufficiently supplied. And each teacher has only four fabric masks until the All Saints holiday. It is insufficient, we do not make a washing machine every day! “
Mask down on her chin, Chloe quietly eats her sandwich while watching the CGT activists pack up their equipment once the happening is over. For this official working for the department, the free mask for all is “obvious”. “It’s normal, you can’t ask poor people to pay for a mask when they barely have enough to buy food. “But that would cost a lot of money,” interrupts her colleague, Myriam. And then a lot of people can afford to buy masks, you just have to help the poorest, ”she concludes.
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