INTERVIEW
Masks are a priority, insists Xavier Bertrand. The President of Hauts-de-France and former Minister of Health, guest of the Grand Rendez-vous on Europe 1, praised the merits of a "war economy" which he himself implemented in his own region. The objective: that this economy be adapted to the national scale with a requisition of the available production force "to make masks.
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"In the Hauts de France region, we had started to build up stocks of masks, we decided to massively produce reusable cloth masks. I am not the only president of the region to do it", explains Xavier Bertrand, quoting Laurent Wauquiez, Hervé Morin and Anne Hidalgo.
"A need for protection and an essential need"
A necessity, according to him, since the French "will certainly want to wear a mask whether it is compulsory or not, as long as the WHO has not told us that the Covid-19 is behind us". "We have long made fun of Asian tourists who wore masks, but the mask will become a staple in your home and this need for protection is an essential need," he adds, assuring that he has guaranteed to the inhabitants of his region that there will be 6 million masks available in mid-May.
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Xavier Bertrand realized this important stock thanks to "initiatives, individual at first, collective then, and formidable," he assures. The elected official thus gives the example of an entrepreneur having launched himself into the mask manufacturing and mobilizing 10,000 seamstresses at home, and which now has more than 30,000. Similarly, the Toyota factory which previously produced cars, will now also produce masks. "It was easy to pool energies and develop a war economy ", assures Xavier Bretrand.