Is it enough, to boost the morale of the nation, to note that the curfew and containment have turned the curve of the pandemic for the second time and that the vaccines are arriving? The second confinement, however looser and shorter than the first, leaves deep traces, which Public Health France has perfectly measured in a survey whose results were published a few days ago: more than one in five French people suffer from a depressive state (against only 11% at the beginning of September). This is the other effect of the pandemic. That which is measured neither in rate of occupation of the intensive care units nor by the curve of evolution of the gross domestic product. A very worrying deleterious effect on the evolution of society in the months to come.
Adjust here and there the constraints so as not to relax the effort while making it more bearable – hence the phased measures announced by the President of the Republic – it’s the least we can do, but that will be all just a clearing in a leaden sky. Society needs more to survive the long fight against the pandemic, without lowering its guard against the virus.
For this, society needs connections and meaning – what it has been most deprived of with the atrophy of social relations imposed by confinement, with the extension of teleworking, and with the closure of bookstores, theaters, cinemas, places of worship. But let’s not expect a miracle from their resumption of “non-essential” activities: the psychosocial damage will take a long time to repair. It will require real listening to society so that it can take charge of itself, while it feels dispossessed of its destiny.
Sharing the weight of history
Containing the health crisis is certainly essential, but it is time to involve citizens in it for the long term, other than by issuing injunctions on what to do. They must be allowed to participate in the global and local understanding of the problems posed by the pandemic and in the emergence of “solutions”. However, this is what is most lacking in essentially “technical-economic” crisis management, accompanied by “communication” operations that are not always convincing. From the first confinement, the Scientific Council had suggested creating a deliberation body comparable to the Citizen’s Climate Convention, but this proposal remained a dead letter.
However, this would have made it possible to organize debates of a different nature than the polemics between experts that we have witnessed for months. Such an instance would have shown that democracy is fundamentally a sharing of the weight of history and destiny, a way of facing together what happens to us, and not simply an arena where we fight. to gain or retain power.
We are far from it, unfortunately. And the stiffening around security issues shows that we are moving further away from it: it is part of a general tendency to treat as enemies rather than partners those with whom we should build a dialogue in order to seek solutions together.
The vaccines and antigen tests that are arriving are certainly valuable tools. But if we do not reinvest in our democracy in depth, they will be of little use in combating the side effects of the health crisis, in economic, psychological and political terms. More than ever, it is necessary to relaunch our democratic contract.
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