Calls from doctors, teachers, elected officials, neighboring countries that filter at the borders, October peak exceeded in intensive care, rarely the pressure on Emmanuel Macron has been so strong to dictate a turn of the screw that he is has so far been refused to take.
It has been twice, on January 29 and March 18, that the Head of State decided to take less stringent measures than those demanded by experts despite a high rate of cases, counting on stabilization with vaccination.
At the end of January, when the country expected a reconfinement, it confined itself to closing the large shopping centers and the external borders. On March 18, he still thwarted the prognosis by deciding on confinement without confinement, with the closure of certain shops and limitation of regional trips, a hybrid formula.
But the deterioration of the health situation, with the peak of autumn passed on Monday in terms of resuscitation, as well as a unanimous salute of complaints will weigh on the decisions that could be made during the Defense Council on Wednesday or not.
Faced with the acceleration of contagions, health professionals have been sounding the alarm for two weeks. This weekend, two forums, one signed by 41 crisis directors from Paris hospitals, the other by nine doctors, accuse the executive of imposing on them, without saying it, an imminent sorting of patients.
“By forcing caregivers to decide which patient should live, the government is relinquishing responsibility in a hypocritical way”, accuse the doctors of the AP-HP.
– Red lines –
However, this hypothesis has always been presented by the Head of State as a red line. “Emmanuel Macron does not want to be the president of a country where one says to one, you can go to intensive care, to the other, you cannot”, explains a government source.
Misconceptions are also increasing among teachers, who relate the difficulties in operating establishments whose staff are affected by the epidemic. Mayors and elected officials are now calling for schools to be closed, especially in Seine-Saint-Denis, where the incidence reached a record of nearly 800 new cases recorded in one week per 100,000 inhabitants.
Here again, the choice is difficult for Emmanuel Macron, who has made it a point of honor to keep the establishments open, in the name of the well-being of children, of educational continuity but also of the functioning of the country. Sending children home forces their parents to telecommute.
Another signal, the decisions of Germany and Spain since this weekend to impose border tests for the French, even quarantine. A disappointment for Emmanuel Macron, particularly attached to maintaining the opening of intra-European borders. It is surrounded by neighbors who are reconfiguring themselves, like Italy, or tightening their restrictions, like Germany.
Caught in the middle of this crossfire, Emmanuel Macron defended his choices on Thursday. “I have no mea culpa to do, no remorse, no acknowledgment of failure,” he said. But he nevertheless mentioned new measures soon, “without taboos”.
The executive accuses opponents of preaching everything and its opposite. “The same people who called for not confining at the end of January are the same who are now calling for doing so. You have huge turnovers. They are making the situation the antechamber of their election. It’s sad,” replied to AFP a member of the executive, in particular alluding to Xavier Bertrand, candidate for 2022.
For the government, keeping the schools open until now remains in any case a success and every open day is a won day. “Schools must remain open as long as possible,” repeated Aurore Bergé (LREM).
On the other hand, the executive recognizes a failure on the incentives for teleworking. “Each time we say: + Telework +, we see a rise in teleworking, then it slackens”, regrets another government source. “We won a few weeks of less hard life. And at the same time, we did not take zero measures. Far from it. We acted,” argues the same source.
The month of April could prove to be the most complicated to manage since the start of the epidemic, under the effect of the third wave due to the English variant, before the impact of vaccinations which is long overdue. In the absence of new measures, the pressure on the Head of State is likely to increase further in the days to come.
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