A message relating to Covid-19 on the A8 motorway, in March 2020 (illustration).
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VALERY HACHE / AFP
On Twitter, the photo of a highway sign inviting drivers to "stand up" to the coronavirus arouses strong reactions.
Internet users who share it are offended to see the latest government campaign against the epidemic thus relayed by private motorway groups.
The latter confirm to
20 Minutes
broadcast such messages since the start of the epidemic, as public service delegates.
Is the government going too far in its methods of communication around health instructions against Covid-19?
While some are enjoying the challenge launched by Emmanuel Macron to YouTubers McFly and Carlito on this subject, Internet users are offended to see the subject appear… under the eyes of motorists.
"When the presidential slogans are posted on the highway, it starts to make a chouïa ex-USSR anyway", quips an illustrated tweet of the photo of a highway billboard bearing the mention "Covid - Tenir ensemble" .
A message that refers to the slogan of the campaign launched in early February by the government to invite the French to "continue their efforts" against the Covid-19.
Cancel and replace @bonste's photo that I brazenly forgot to credit.
pic.twitter.com/4FjI4Uy3ne
- 🦏 Babar the Rhinoceros 🦏 (@Babar_le_Rhino) February 23, 2021
“Hey, Vinci Autoroutes is campaigning for Emmanuel Macron!
[Seen on the A8] between Antibes and Nice this morning, last week too, “annoyed for its part the first tweet to have relayed this cliché which has since become viral.
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Contacted by
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, Sandrine, the internet user behind this first tweet, tells us that the photo was taken by her spouse "Tuesday February 23 at 7 am between Saint-Laurent du Var and Cagnes-sur-Mer" , on a section of the A8 located in the Alpes-Maritimes, as can be seen on Google Street View.
“Last Friday, he told me this info, he was shocked [to see this message].
I asked him to take a picture if possible when he saw him again, ”she explains, considering that it is“ not normal for a private company to relay presidential propaganda on a highway ”.
"Especially that, rather than" hold ", we suffer more than anything else, even more here where the Minister of Health only moves when the epidemic situation is catastrophic, while the figures have been bad since December!
», Adds Sandrine.
Messages relayed since the start of the epidemic
Contacted by
20 Minutes
, the Vinci Autoroutes group confirms having, "as a delegatee of a public service activity", "contractual and regulatory obligations to respond to requests from the authorities, in the same way as other infrastructure managers. transport (interdepartmental road directorates, SNCF, etc.) ”
“At the request of the transport infrastructure department (a department of the Ministry [of Ecological Transition]), Vinci Autoroutes, like all road network managers, has been relaying since the start of the epidemic, on its signs at variable messages, government awareness campaigns related to the health situation.
We regularly relay, at the request of the State or the authorities, messages that are of general utility, such as kidnapping alerts, ”continues the company.
Thus, since March 2020, the Vinci highways have displayed various messages related to Covid-19 over the months, of which the group recalls a few examples: “Covid-19 = limit contacts” at the start of the first confinement, “Covid-19, protect your loved ones "in May 2020," Covid-19, let's keep the right reflexes "from September to mid-December 2020 ...
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, the Autoroutes Paris-Rhin-Rhône (APRR) motorway network also confirms to us that it is relaying similar messages: “Like any body receiving the public, all means of communication relay the health rules that apply to all.
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