"The France of 2020 is not that of 1940 by Pierre Lemaitre"

Perhaps I should not have freed this however delicious novel,  the Mirror of our sentences,  signed Pierre Lemaître, which plunges me for a few days in France of 1939/1940, that of the funny war and the debacle .

The images that suddenly overlap.

Because yes, I have heard in recent weeks a chef urging me to go to war, yes, I was sure of the strength of our country, the best virologists, the best hospital system…

And then suddenly, like in the book, there is this "funny war" that happened, the incomprehension, the doubts, the questions, finally we were not so well armed, where were the masks, where were the tests, where was the flour at the supermarket?

And then I discovered, as in the book, an army so united at the beginning of March, which suddenly disintegrates, a discourse so unifying which suddenly crumbles, chloroquine or not chloroquine? Return to work or maintain telework? Return to school or prolonged confinement of children? Red zone or green zone? I even heard a football club president forgetting the 20,000 dead ready to organize a simple tournament over a weekend to protect the best interests of his team.

And now, Wendy, after the funny war and the feeling of collapse, it is since last night the outlines of a new regime are taking shape.

A country where gendarmes in helicopters monitor the beaches to forbid us, a country where a health police suddenly tramples on my medical secret, a brigade of sworn officials who will decide my freedom or my isolation;

And images from Pierre Lemaître's book, which mingle with those chilling ones of the series that accompanies me every evening, magnificent but terrible "scarlet servant", this evocation of a great democracy become dictatorship in the hands of a sect who took power, and who forces us to walk masked spaced 10 meters on the sidewalks.

It's time Wendy that I get out of my books, my series, this bad dream of containment.

The France of 2020 is not that of 1940 by Pierre Lemaitre, it will not be that of the scarlet servant tomorrow.

it is also the country which applauds every evening at 8:00 p.m., the country of these caregivers in sheave who braved fear and disease, by chaining for a pittance days of 12:00 p.m., the country of these surgeons who improvised stretcher bearers, at the doors of overwhelmed hospitals, the country of these garbage collectors in Alsace who became secretary of the town hall to organize their work, the country of these EPADH staff who preferred to sleep with residents to better protect them, the country of these truckers who drove whole nights on deserted highways without shower or coffee to deliver us.

Yes, this France which is my country and which I love, the country with 5,000 cinemas, 7 million festival-goers and 26,000 bars and brasseries, now barricaded that I long to find.

May the books and series that I love so much in normal times remain in the state of fiction and that life, the real one, with others resumes for good.

Tomorrow will be the start of the eighth week of containment.