Why do the Germans seem to accept health measures better?

Angela Merkel wearing a mask -

• After Berlin and Frankfurt, Cologne is installing a curfew from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. on Saturday for its bars and restaurants.

• A measure that surely calls for others, Angela Merkel having warned that other screw tightening could be done, in a country which has been experiencing an outbreak of coronavirus cases for a few days.

• These health measures seem to be better experienced by the Germans than by their French neighbors.

  Why such a membership?

Soaring coronavirus contamination figures, large cities in alert zones taking increasingly strict health measures, fear of an economic collapse and a second wave ... By crossing the Rhine, nothing looks really different from France among our German neighbors.

In Berlin, a city known for its nightlife, a curfew is in place between 11:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m. All establishments - except pharmacies and gas stations - will have to close during this time slot. until October 31.

Frankfurt and Cologne have since taken similar steps.

Angela Merkel also announced on Friday that other measures could be taken.

88% of Germans find the necessary measures

Barrier gestures close to our tricolor measures have already been applied for a long time: social distancing, ban on large gatherings, wearing a mask, quickly lists for

Isabelle Bourgeois, specialist in Germany and then researcher at the information and research on contemporary Germany (CIRAC).

So far, nothing new compared to our country, therefore, with one exception: all these measures, from curfew to mask, seem much more accepted on the other side of the Rhine.

In mid-September, the public channel ZDF carried out a survey on the various measures: 68% of Germans find them suitable, 20% would even like them to be more drastic, and only 11% consider them excessive.

By way of comparison, an Elabe poll carried out on September 24 and 25, 2020 showed that 24% of French people believe that the government is taking too many precautions against the coronavirus, 45% not enough.

Only 30% of the population thought the government was doing exactly the right thing, more than half as much as in Germany.

Local approach and adaptation

How to explain such a plebiscite on the German side?

For Isabelle Bourgeois, it is above all a question of local politics:

“There is not one but policies in Germany, far from being the centralized country that we are.

There are altogether 17 governments - one for each of the 16

- and the federal government which oversees everything (and represents Germany abroad).

As a result, as the Covid-19 is an epidemic with local data, there will be answers chosen by territoriality and not the feeling that Berlin decides everything.

"

And when Isabelle Bourgeois speaks of a local response, it can be very, very local: “Within the same

, there can be a vast disparity of measures.

And within a large city, different measures depending on the neighborhood.

"

Confidence in the collective

Proof of the importance of having the feeling of measures requiring consultation of the

, Thomas Wieder, German correspondent for

, reported this Friday in the French daily that the only measure that was really controversial for the moment was that prohibiting stays in the hotel and tourist residences of people living in a “risk zone” (incidence> 50 per 100,000 individuals, the case of Berlin and Cologne).

Controversy due to the fact that "the

did not consult each other before fixing them".

Besides this feeling of politics adapted to the local situation, Isabelle Bourgeois calls for a culturalist explanation: “The idea is rooted in German policies and in their culture that from the moment I exercise my freedoms, I 'at the same time exercise my responsibilities towards the community ”.

Still in the sociology part of a nation, she continues: “Germany is a society built on trust and the moral contract between individuals.

They trust each other to succeed collectively, where in France we will say to ourselves "These measures will not work because my neighbor will not respect them."

Confidence in the country and in its inhabitants reinforced by the relative success of the first wave, much better managed than its French, Spanish, Italian or British neighbors.

The question of anti-masks

And we see you coming, you who want to destroy our angle written studiously despite this sunny Saturday: "Yes, but the anti-masks then?

Indeed, several anti-mask demonstrations took place in Germany.

For Isabelle Bourgeois, we must already be careful not to over-mediate the phenomenon, which for the expert, represents only a tiny part of the country's population.

Thomas Wieder, still in the columns of the

, explains that the movement "struggles to spread".

First, because of the presence of violent neo-Nazis within it, whose images in front of the Reichstag on August 29 had caused a scandal in the country.

Then, “the sharp rise in the number of contaminations since the start of the school year makes the anti-mask discourse less audible and in a certain way out of tune.

"

Because for Isabelle Bourgeois, we must not be mistaken.

Beyond all the explanations put forward above, if the Germans are also in favor of the measures, “it is because there is quite simply a huge fear in Germany of a second wave.

"

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