• A defense council is scheduled for this Friday around inflation and the energy crisis, recalling the health defense councils at the height of the epidemic.

  • Added semantics reminiscent of that of the coronavirus, such as peaks and high plateaus.

  • To recall the memories of the Covid-19, is the government on the wrong track?

"The peak is expected", "we are on a high plateau", Olivier Véran who speaks 17 times in three days, a Defense Council this Friday, the end of the world before, massive public aid and a subject which comes up repeatedly in the mouth of the executive and which turns in the heads of the French… Does it remind you of anything?

The current treatment of inflation has Covid-19 aftertaste, even though the bulk of the health crisis dates back only a few months and the virus is still circulating.

Same lexical field, same semantics, same answers, massive use of public aid and circumvention of the parliamentary voice, strongly criticized by the opposition.

“By using the words of the coronavirus, the government is showing itself as a crisis manager, notes Amandine Ciappa, specialist in crisis communication and political communication.

A crisis from which we emerged for the pandemic.

It's a message: "yes, the executive takes the subject in hand, and yes, there is a way out of all this".

The choice of Olivier Véran, Minister of Health during the Covid-19, as the new spokesperson for the government goes in this direction.

For Benjamin Morel, Doctor of Political Science at the ENS, “Emmanuel Macron is surfing on the same mechanics: a raising of flags and a feeling of national unity in the face of a major crisis.

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A dramaqueen government?

But beware of a vocabulary and attitudes that can border on excess.

“Emmanuel Macron seeks to dramatize the coming crisis in order to justify a strong, centralized and united power around the leader and his person.

However, an institutional modelling, in particular with the return of the defense council and the circumvention of the parliamentary route, is not really justified for an economic crisis ”, continues Benjamin Morel.

If all prices double or we spend the winter without electricity, such a tone would seem justified.

“The government is putting itself in a crisis management scenario when it has not yet taken place, or even when it will not take place.

There are risks - of energy cuts, rationing, social anger - that the situation will get out of hand, and it's good to be in anticipation.

But there is in fact a discrepancy in seeing the government enter into crisis communication which does not yet exist, ”repeats Amandine Ciappa.

Not to mention the misinterpretations that this mimicry induces.

Olivier Véran, yet the first to use the term "peak" to qualify inflation, himself had to remind Sunday on BFM that the metaphor was quickly reaching its limits.

In particular because even in the event of a drop in inflation, prices continue to rise.

"The economy is not about health, and speaking of one with the language of the other, we risk confusing everything", worries Marc Touati, economist.

From dramatization to disempowerment

Using the expressions of the coronavirus also serves to absolve oneself of responsibility, according to the expert: "As much as the pandemic fell out of nowhere, the government has its share of responsibility in the current inflation".

Knowing that she was starting to get carried away before the war in Ukraine.

“By not curbing public spending in 2021 as we gradually emerged from the Covid-19 crisis, and by letting the European Central Bank pay off debt without interest rates, governments artificially boosted demand, causing part inflation", denounces Marc Touati.

However, talking about it with a vocabulary specific to Covid-19 gives inflation this image “of an unpredictable and natural disaster, far from the wrongs of politics”, he points out.

Same observation with Benjamin Morel: "The situation could lead to deleterious debates for the executive: the state of our nuclear and energy fleet, European solidarity, the effectiveness of sanctions against Russia... Evoking the field of the drama makes it possible to circumvent debates and criticisms assuming the need for an unchallenged leader”.

The limits of reasoning

And the same answers provided also have their limits.

France has one of the least low inflations in Europe thanks to several state mechanisms: tariff shield, energy check, discount on gasoline... A "Whatever it costs" bis which does not say its name, but which only makes the situation worse according to Marc Touati.

And which according to him will not work as well.

Firstly, because France has already exploded its debt with the virus, secondly because the European Central Bank, precisely to fight against inflation, has raised its interest rates: “It will be much more expensive to repay our debt than in 2020 or 2021”, worries the economist.

Thirdly, because aid artificially boosts consumer demand, demand that it is precisely necessary to lower in times of inflation.

"It's headlong rush,

But not everything is modeled on the management of Covid-19 either.

“Compared to the health crisis, there is a crying lack of education.

At the end of the three confinements, we had 60 million epidemiologists so full of experts, graphs and explanations, "recalls Caroline Marchetti, founder of Controverse, opinion analysis and consulting agency. in strategy.

However, if this health knowledge has enabled the population to accept more than restrictive measures, the lack of explanations for inflation could make itself felt: “Of course people are going to complain about the rise in prices s don't understand where it comes from or they think it's only because of our support for Ukraine.

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Are we at war?

Another change: the notion of war, mentioned – rightly and wrongly – during the coronavirus, is no longer in the vocabulary.

The Minister of the Economy, Bruno Le Maire, backpedaled after referring to "an economic war against Russia", while on March 15, 2020, Emmanuel Macron repeated six times "We are at war" in his speech announcing the first confinement. .

A lack, according to Caroline Marchetti: “With a Churchillian speech, there was the support of the population and the idea that we were going to get through this together.

There is a lack of accountability and involvement of the population in the management of the crisis.

And then when we are at war, we no longer complain about the lack of sunflower oil, we understand the gravity of the situation”.

For Benjamin Morel, on the contrary, the absence of war metaphors is rather a good thing: “We are not at war with Russia, any more than we were at war against the coronavirus.

What we must fear, moreover, with these defense councils, this absence of parliamentary debate and this closed communication, is not that references to Covid-19 will become the norm, but that there is a form establishment of a permanent and global state of crisis.

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  • Economy

  • Coronavirus

  • Inflation

  • Olivier Veran

  • War in Ukraine

  • Government