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Photo credits: CHRISTOPHE SIMON / AFP
A “controversy” mounted from scratch, against a background of stigmatization of youth
“The case” is not unlike that of the New Year’s “rave-party”, organized in Ille-et-Vilaine, and which again opened a trial in “irresponsibility” of participants and organizers. The Breton party had indeed hit the headlines and was the subject of a real media outburst, repressive and judicial, since a 22-year-old man, indicted, even risks up to ten years in prison.
The Marseille carnival is also the subject of multiple condemnations on the part, in particular, of the Ministry of the Interior which declares, through the voice of Camille Chaize, its spokesperson, wanting to “Judicialize to the maximum” the repression of this festival that he judges “Unacceptable, while all French people are making efforts and adapting”. The government rhetoric obviously seeks to pass off the party participants, especially the young people, as “irresponsible egotists”. Sentences of crass hypocrisy while the government nevertheless encourages travel “outside”, in accordance with its strategy which it describes as a “breath of fresh air” strategy.
But how can we say on the one hand that there is very little chance of getting contaminated outside while opening a flood of condemnation against the participants in the carnival? In reality, this carnival is an ideal backfire to hide the responsibility of this third confinement (which is not one) to seek a way out for this catastrophic sequence, as evidenced by the cacophony relating to the modalities of the attestations.
The expression of growing mistrust
But in reality, the fact that the whole of the political class is spread over this famous carnival illustrates another fear: that the authority of the State, largely dented, is still more called into question. Indeed, this gathering comes at the very moment when Macron decrees the new confinement for 16 departments, enough to erode the credit of the authority that the government seeks to deploy to guarantee its establishment.
So many questions that deeply torment the government as well as the political class. A government which expresses moreover its excitement at the threat of growing disobedience, one year before the presidential elections, in reaction to its own failures in the health field. The “bet” had in fact consisted in “keeping our backs” by maintaining the openness of the economy and schools at all costs, by using social life and leisure activities as an adjustment variable. As evidenced by the declarations of Jean Castex, at the time of bringing forward the curfew to 6 p.m., in January, who claimed to want to hunt down “aperitifs and clandestine parties”, thereby seeking to make the burden weigh primarily. of responsibility on youth and personal practices. But the English variant, its contagiousness and the shortage of vaccines came to put down this iniquitous and authoritarian health strategy.
A recent survey indeed testifies to the weariness and mistrust of this new partial confinement decreed at the end of the week. 47% of those polled say they will not comply with the restrictions, like two-thirds of young people. But this “unconsciousness” of the carnival riders, as Renaud Muselier likes to call it, LR president of the PACA region, is nothing other than the result of a political and health failure.
Empty controversies and still no vaccine campaign up to the mark or resources
Finding scapegoats and those responsible for the epidemic rebound is undoubtedly a recourse for the government, which has a series of failures in the organization of the vaccination campaign. Moreover, the hospitals under pressure still do not have, a year later, the adequate means to cope with the influx of patients while the private sector is requisitioned only as a last resort.
While the government refuses to deploy a real prevention strategy aimed at breaking the chains of contamination, that of “stop and go” is reaching its limits. These measures, characteristic of neoliberal management, condemn us to endure heavy restrictions which hinder our freedoms and endanger the psychological health of many people. It is not a few thousand carnival riders who are responsible for the calamities we endure. To put an end to this epidemic, we must requisition the vaccine production lines left inactive, release the patents and provide resources to meet the needs for the hospital.
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