After Covid-19, towards a new world?

Text by: Bruno Faure Follow

Until Sunday May 10, RFI is mobilizing in an unprecedented way to try to understand what the coronavirus pandemic will change on the planet in our exchanges, our social relationships, our health systems or even our ways of thinking about the world. Prestigious guests will follow one another to comment on these major issues.

Publicity

For the past four months and the discovery in China of a new coronavirus called SARS-CoV-2, the entire planet has been living at the rate of a pandemic that has already killed more than 260,000 people worldwide, according to the May 7 report. Johns Hopkins University, and affected nearly 4 million people in 187 countries. A health disaster, particularly in certain countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Spain, Italy, France or China. Hospital systems are under severe strain.

But as containment measures have been ordered around the world, the disaster has also become economic. When activity stops, when trade ceases, unemployment takes hold, the poor become even poorer. An unprecedented upheaval since the Second World War, the greatest cataclysm of the 20th century. A “Covid generation” may be in the making.

A special morning this Friday, May 8

Certainly the pandemic is not over, in the countries of the North as in those of the South. Admittedly, the nursing staff act here and there as heroes to save lives and save suffering. Certainly the leaders of the planet are multiplying the plans to find a balance between health security and restarting the economy. But the time is already ripe for questions, extremely numerous, so that the planet reserves itself a better future. How can we learn the human lessons from this catastrophe which will have put our finger on our community of destinies? Globalization, often made responsible for the spread of the virus, should it be rethought? The dependence on food imports and imports of medicines, glaring in many countries, particularly in Africa, was revealed by this crisis.

So many first lines of reflection for the special morning that Arnaud Pontus presents this Friday, May 8 from 6 a.m. to 8 a.m. (universal time). From his place of confinement, he will converse (remotely) with several renowned guests. Starting with the French economist Thomas Piketty , renowned for his work on social inequalities in the world. Also online, the sociologist and anthropologist Didier Fassin . A former doctor in India and Tunisia, he did a thesis in the suburbs of Dakar, Senegal, on the health system. Since last January, this professor at Princeton University in the United States has held the chair of public health at the Collège de France. And for an African look, RFI will welcome Rebecca Enonchong , one of the rising figures in Africa. Cameroonian entrepreneur, she is the director of AppsTech and chairs AfriLabs, a pan-African network made up of more than 100 innovation centers. She will be online from her place of containment in Douala. Their discussion will be interspersed with reports and testimonies, from the DRC to Brazil via Côte d'Ivoire, China and the United States.

What lessons in Africa ?

The reflection will be far from over. In the process, Juan Gomez will take over for a special number of Appeals on current events  : "What lessons and what challenges in Africa?" " Felwine Sarr, Senegalese economist and writer and Aminata Dramane Traoré, anti-globalization activist, former Minister of Culture of Mali, will answer questions from the audience. Prioritaire santé will then be aptly named since Caroline Paré and her guests will wonder whether after the pandemic, health will be a “new absolute priority”? And it is in fact a real marathon which will start with cultural broadcasts like You tell me news  ("Artists rethink the world"),  Literature without borders ("The world after in literature")and  It is not the wind  that will explain how this crisis reveals the limits of a globalized agriculture.

Land, sea and air transport being slowed down, the borders being closed, foodstuffs hardly circulate any more. States are encouraged to reflect on their food dependencies and to rethink their agricultural model. In Décryptage , Romain Auzouy will also ask the question: "Will the next crisis be climatic?" " In the meantime, Radio Foot Internationale by Annie Gasnier will offer a "Sports Café" around a reflection on "Le foot après", a sector also affected.

And this exceptional Friday will not be over, since from 5:40 pm UT, Dominique Baillard (RFI) and Caroline De Camaret (France 24) will receive for Ici l'Europe  major guests: the European Commissioner Thierry Breton, the secretary of State for European Affairs Amélie de Montchalin and environmental MEP Yannick Jadot. They will answer questions from citizens. The day will end on the Old Continent with reports from Accents d'Europe .

Out of confinement, out of war ?

The next day, Saturday, May 9, Eco from here, eco from elsewhere , the program that dismantles the workings of the economy, will reflect on the social consequences of general confinement. Jean-Pierre Boris and his guests will wonder if the next world will not look like "an ocean of misery". In G major , presented by Yasmine Chouaki, Géopolitique, the debate  with Marie-France Chatin will complete the day's program.

Finally on Sunday, Religions du monde  by Geneviève Delrue and personalities from the religious world will question the concept of "happy sobriety". Does the health crisis not validate a diagnosis carried by religions for a long time?

"Get out of containment, get out of war?" Will be the theme of Valérie Nivelon's March of the World .Steven Jambot's Media Workshopwill receive economist Julia Cagé to ask what will become of the media in "the next world". One Sunday to further reflect with ideas  of Pierre-Édouard Deldique "What Africa after the pandemic? " Following the call of the greatest African intellectuals, the sociologist Alioune Sall, the economist Kako Nubukpo , the philosopher Nadia Yala Kisukidi, and the sociologist Martial Ze Belinga will have their share of the debate. And it is Daniel Desesquelle who will close the way with a Crossroads of Europe  dedicated to the future of a Union which will once again have revealed its flaws during the coronavirus crisis.

Call to Internet users

RFI's digital environments are not to be outdone. On the site and the applications, original productions and numerous written contributions from intellectuals or influential members of civil society, from Africa or elsewhere. All the productions can be found on the page After the Covid-19, towards a new world? .

On social networks, an appeal is made to internet users, so that they express their vision of the world after Covid-19. The best contributions will be brought together in an article published on the RFI website and networks. The entire special day of May 8 is also to follow on Twitter with the hashtag #EnsembleavecRFI .

Our selection on the coronavirus

• Listen to our daily chronicle  Coronavirus info

• The practical questions  :
→  What is known about the mode of contagion
→  disparities and inequalities in coronaviruses: what to remember
→  What outcomes for clinical trials?
→  A vaccine, the only solution to stem the pandemic?
→  How to make a mask and use it well

• Our series  : "  The response, country by country  "

• Each evening, find the State of the world and Africa facing the pandemic

• See also the files of RFI Savoirs on the Covid-19:
→  Birth of a pandemic
→  Everyday life put to the test
→  The history of epidemics
→  Science facing the Covid-19
→  The geopolitical consequences

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

Follow all international news by downloading the RFI application

• RFI
• After Covid-19 to a new world?
• Coronavirus
• Confinement

On the same subject

News calls

[Your reactions] Coronavirus: RFI gives you the floor