The mask has become an instrument of political communication. Not wearing it for a French politician is a way of reassuring. It has become the symbol of this global health crisis but also of the irrationality of crowd movements and modern collective runaway.
Emmanuel Macron will therefore make his first television intervention this evening devoted to the Coronavirus epidemic.
Naturally, the Head of State will speak without a mask. It seems obvious, but there are countries where the epidemic is so advanced that political leaders are walking around and now speak on television with a mask. This is the case in China, where it all started, it is also the case in South Korea. To wear it is to set an example, where it is necessary.
But France is not there yet!
No and it's even the opposite. Not wearing it for a French politician is a way of reassuring. The mask has become an instrument of political communication. We also realize that this more or less technological piece of paper is being transformed into an absolute symbol of all that this global health crisis is carrying. It is him that many people are snapping up, causing shortages and hyperinflation of prices. To the point that the law enforcement agencies must have threatened to control prices. Customs, for its part, has seized numerous counterfeits. The mask is the symbol of the irrationality of crowd movements and modern collective excitement.
There have also been a lot of fake news about masks, their use or their manufacture.
Fake news that social networks have not always managed to contain. So much so that Facebook has banned advertising on its network. The mask, symbol of this new disruption of communication.
On an international scale ?
Again, what a symbol. In Europe, it is the marker of the division and the incapacity of this continent to manage jointly a problem which, by definition, makes fun of borders. The calls for help from Italy to its neighbors for the supply of masks collided with a wall. The countries being themselves rather badly supplied, they did not want to divest themselves of stocks before the massive arrival of the epidemic on their own soil. France and Germany have even banned the export of masks, just to reassure their public opinion. Of course, Europe has lost a good opportunity to show that it was not just a technocratic thing or a concept for central bankers.
It is ultimately China that will supply Italy.
Yes, which means that Europe has also missed this chance to assert its sovereignty over China. Since the virus began to regress in this country, its leaders have regained their market share reflexes. Chinese diplomacy has not missed the opportunity to offer Italy the supply of masks and breathing apparatus that Europeans could not bring it. Here it is: China, where the virus started, sends containers of masks and goes to the aid of the rest of the world. The mask, a formidable symbol of a new world order.