In the News: Macron's retreat from the confinement of seniors

Audio 05:20

By: Norbert Navarro

Publicity

Macron's decline in the confinement of seniors, whether prolonged or not in France after May 11.

After announcing it, the president finally decided, it's "  no  ". All accounts made and redone, the president therefore decided last night to backtrack on the prolonged confinement of seniors.

It is however incontestable: faced with the coronavirus, the drooping heads are more fragile than the whitebeaks. Only here, the subject is electorally sensitive. Because the seniors constitute a “  decisive electorate for the presidential  ”, explains Le Figaro. And the announcement of their prolonged confinement beyond May 11 had aroused on their part a "  raising of shields  ", points out this newspaper.

Which Figaro does not fail to congratulate itself on the front of the decision announced last night by the Elysée Palace.

Because with this confinement that this daily presents as "  indefinite  ", Le Figaro notes that "  it is no longer death that separates our elders from those who live, but life. A life separate from others, a life that gradually empties of its substance  . ”

So ? So this newspaper with a readership rather located on the side of seniors raises the question. "  Will this generation have to show a health report to get out of their house?" Unthinkable! (…) In a democracy, legitimate power takes precedence over that of experts. It was urgent that Emmanuel Macron, president of the political council, call him back … ”, therefore reassures Le Figaro

Meanwhile, tea towel burns between China and Westerners over the origin of the coronavirus 

It was first an article published this week by the American newspaper Washington Post. Then came the interview given the day before yesterday by President Macron to the British newspaper Financial Times.

Before that, conspiracy theses on the origin of the coronavirus had been agitating social networks for three months. To complete the picture, add in the background this open investigation on the subject in the United States and these growing diplomatic tensions with China, and you get this excitement in which the newspaper Liberation sees only "  rumors and controversies  " and which tend to demonstrate that the virus would have "  escaped  " from a high-security laboratory in Wuhan, from where the pandemic started, therefore. Let's resume.

The Washington Post article , first? Starting with its nature. For the newspaper Le Parisien , it is a “  chronicle (which) throws the trouble  ”. Liberation , for its part, places this article "  halfway between the investigation and the tribune  ". Then its content: it talks about diplomatic telegrams sent to the central administration of the United States by American representatives in China after a series of inspections in Wuhan.

The Washington Post, quoted this morning by Liberation , reports that two years ago, "  US Embassy officials visited research facilities in Wuhan [at the Virology Institute] several times and sent two official warnings in Washington on the inappropriate security conditions in the laboratory, which was conducting risky studies on coronaviruses from bats,  "reveals the American daily, according to which these"  diplomatic cables  "have"  fueled discussions within of the US government on whether this laboratory in Wuhan or another (was the source of the contamination) even if no concrete evidence has yet been found  . "

So there was an interview with Emmanuel Macron published on Thursday by the Financial Times

Recalling the statement of the French president who "  went around the world  ", when Emmanuel Macron said that "  there are obviously things that have happened that we do not know.  ", While inviting readers of the Financial Times and beyond not to be"  naive  ", the head of state"  seemed to endorse a rumor,  "said Liberation.

What to conclude from it? At this point, it is a "  propaganda war  " that Americans and Chinese are now fighting, the daily highlights. A "  fight  " that does not bode well, sighs this newspaper.

This crisis in the crisis is like a real eclipse of the honeymoon between China and Western countries, but not only ... between China and Africa too

This is highlighted in Le Figaro by a researcher from the Foundation for Strategic Research. Valérie Niquet, that's her name, notes that Chinese President "  Xi Jinping has succeeded in scuttling relations with the United States, with Africa, with Southeast Asia and with Europe, whose great French partner. China's bashing and dividing strategy has gone too far. Today everyone is aware of the madness of the Chinese system  , ”says Valérie Niquet in Le Figaro.

Another Chinese specialist at the Foundation for Strategic Research, Antoine Bondaz estimates on a social network quoted by Le Figaro that "  the official Chinese communication mixing self-satisfaction, aggressiveness and disinformation is turning against China. This strategy was a suicide in terms of public relations and will have serious consequences  , "notes Le Figaro in this analysis Antoine Bondaz signed, the Foundation for Strategic Research.

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