During the coronavirus epidemic, something broke in the confidence that the French had in their state. They criticized the action of their government much more than other Europeans, despite the difficulties and sometimes similar health outcomes. They also felt poorly protected and displayed their pessimism. Why ? The director of publications of the Montaigne Institute, Nicolas Bauquet, conducted around fifty interviews for “Understand what may have been playing out, in these months of crisis, between power and society”, and published a note on Monday evening entitled “Bouncing back from the Covid-19: lessons for public action”. A long list of failures in public action.
When it came to crisis management, the first steps were chaotic. From January 27 to March 17, the Ministry of Health alone piloted the State’s response, via the Regional Health Agencies. However, they were equipped to distribute credits, not to set up emergency logistics for masks, patient transfers, etc. “This primacy of health in crisis management has not made it possible to bring the different state services on the ground into coherence”, emphasizes the author.
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