Coronavirus in France: Macron draws its own "independent investigation"

Text by: Valérie Gas Follow

Emmanuel Macron launched Thursday afternoon at the Elysée a mission to assess the management of the coronavirus crisis at the head of which he has appointed a Swiss infectious disease doctor and epidemiologist, Professor Didier Pittet who will work with four other personalities : Raoul Briet, former President of the Court of Auditors, Laurence Boone, Chief Economist of the OECD, Anne-Marie Moulin, Emeritus Research Director at CNRS and Pierre Parneix, Public Health Doctor at the Bordeaux University Hospital. The mission has 6 months to deliver its conclusions. Emmanuel Macron tries to be on the initiative and to show that he is not afraid of an evaluation despite the questionings of the management of the epidemic.

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The president's objective is to display his desire for transparency. And at the Elysée, it is asserted, this initiative is nothing exceptional: it is normal and "legitimate", we explain, that the executive seeks to have independent feedback. An assessment of the management of this unprecedented health crisis which revealed "shortcomings"; we remember the shortages of masks and tests in particular.

An initiative criticized by the opposition but presented as complementary and non-competitive to the parliamentary inquiry commission which was launched. But an initiative which will surely also make it possible to make heard on the other side another analysis, less political. It is, in fact, personalities from the scientific and economic world who have been chosen to lead this work, with a roadmap: to give "transparent, complete and lucid" information to the French.

A mission which nevertheless has a political aim: to strengthen citizens' "confidence" in the institutions.

Emmanuel Macron has promised to learn lessons from the crisis. By taking this initiative, he hopes to show that he is keeping his commitments and that he is thinking of the next world, because the mission must also help the country to prepare for other pandemics.

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• France
• Coronavirus
• Emmanuel Macron

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