Headlines: French distrust of the management of the coronavirus crisis

Audio 00:04

By: Norbert Navarro

Publicity

In the weekly press and magazine.

Ten days of confinement and questions asked this morning by French newspapers.

On the front page of the Journal du Dimanche, those who are angry are asked, those relating to “ material delays ” - relating to protective masks as well as coronavirus screening tests - or those relating to the “ political choices ” of the French government. .

Exactly. The front page of the Parisian Sunday wonders if, in this crisis, Emmanuel Macron can " restore confidence? "

Elements of response in The JDD , with this Ifop poll according to which 56% of French people say they have " no confidence " in the government to " deal effectively " with the coronavirus epidemic, against 44% who say the opposite. From one week to the next, according to Le JDD , the government's confidence rating in the management of the coronavirus crisis therefore lost 11 points.

Surprisingly, this same Sunday Journal publishes another index stamped Ifop, indicating that Emmanuel Macron's popularity rating has increased by… 11 points in one month, reaching 43% of “ satisfied ” .

Political questions also on the management of the crisis, with regard to certain Frenchmen who do not take confinement seriously:

Being reminded that scuffles with the police broke out in certain working-class neighborhoods in France, because the police were trying to impose confinement, the weekly Le Canard Enchaîné claims that instructions had been given to them not to enforce, to avoid unrest.

During a videoconference with the prefects, the Secretary of State for the Interior Laurent Nunez would have said that confinement would not be " a priority " in working-class neighborhoods, reports the satirical weekly, the government's concern thus expressed by the Minister of the Interior's right arm therefore being not to offend people in the suburbs.

" It is not a priority to enforce respect in neighborhoods for business closings and to stop gatherings " would have said Laurent Nunez, reports Le Canard Enchaîné.

But these questions, it is largely the man of the week who inspired them to the press, Professor Didier Raoult, this French doctor who advocates the use of chloroquine to fight the coronavirus:

This morning again, Didier Raoult is on the front page of the Journal du Dimanche and the Parisien Dimanche.

The day before yesterday, the director of the hospital and university institute Méditerranée Infection, in Marseille, south of France, published results this time on 80 patients (compared to 20 during the first tests), results " showing, according to him , the effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine in treating patients with Covid-19, ”reports L'Obs.

According to this second study, out of 80 patients, 65 experienced a “ favorable development ” and were discharged from the hospital after less than five days on average (this is more than 80% of the cases studied), notes L'Obs. .

Which magazine stresses however that these preliminary works " are disputed ", a large part of the scientific community and health organizations call to " wait for a rigorous scientific validation, by warning against the possible risks ", supplements this weekly.

Didier Raoult is he the man who was right before everyone else? In the nuanced portrait he paints of him, the weekly L'Obs , at the same time, underlines " that his research in microbiology is impressive ", but that " this working monster " is so much " hard with his troops "that three years ago, twelve engineers and laboratory workers drew up a" complaint "against him.

One who was right before everyone else was the environmentalist Yves Cochet. They had warned us of what is happening, he had planned it. And writes:

Author, last year, of a book entitled “ Devant la collapse. Collapsology essays "(The links that liberate), Yves Cochet, when his book came out, was then regarded as" a funny Cassandre ", states" M ", the weekly magazine of the newspaper Le Monde.

Being reminded that, in mythology, Cassandre was the daughter of Priam, king of Troy and that a god of the ancient Greeks had given him the power to predict the future, before launching a curse making him that nobody would believe her, " M " compares Yves Cochet to Cassandre. “ No more sneering, launches this newspaper: what if Yves Cochet had been right before everyone else? " Because in his book, page 123, the former Minister of the Environment for the government Jospin wrote " black and white that a pandemic could trigger widespread collapse ".

Joined by " M ", Yves Cochet today declares: " All of this shows that globalization is making us weak and making our economy vulnerable. We are too interdependent . ”

Confinement, Yves Cochet passes it as a family in his house equipped with a well " equipped with a hand pump, three tanks each containing 1,000 liters of rain water, a pond whose water can be filtered and wood to heat for five years. " We had been planning for fifteen years, " he said to "M ". (…) If there were not the world's immense misfortune, we would be almost happy ”.

Like Cassandre, the Vert Cochet was therefore right. Yet no one at the top of the state thought of calling him. Nor are the other collapspologists who, like him, have been thinking about collapse for a long time. And Yves Cochet, in “ M ”, sighs: “ They still don't take us seriously. " Like Cassandre, the accursed one.

Newsletter With the Daily Newsletter, find the headlines directly in your mailbox

Follow all international news by downloading the RFI application

• Newspaper
• Coronavirus
• Containment