Guest from Europe Soir, Stéphane Fouks, vice-president of Havas and author of "Media pandemic", looks back on three communication errors made by the government during the health crisis.

Errors which have led to "feeding populism and mistrust", but also to limiting the vision of the French "to a short horizon".  

INTERVIEW

He evokes in his work a French fiasco.

Guest from Europe Evening, Stéphane Fouks, vice-president of Havas and author of "Media pandemic" (Plon), looks back on what are, according to him, government errors in its crisis communication on the coronavirus.

Three big mistakes were made and led to "feeding populism and mistrust" according to him: infantilization, the reign of technocracy and an incoherent practice of power.

"We started with a lie about the masks, that made everything go wrong," says Stéphane Fouks. 

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"We took the French for children"

"We were told that it was useless to hide the shortage [of masks], for fear of panic, but also because some consider [ed] that we were so stupid that we could not learn to wear this fabric. . We took the French for children and we treated them as such, unlike Germany which called on everyone's responsibility. "

Stéphane Fouks recalls that Berlin has a death toll of nearly 55,000, against more than 74,000 for France. 

Another error pointed out by the specialist: "being wrong in what to say and being obsessed with opinion."

In the most resistant country in the world to be vaccinated, the vice-president of Havas believes that the government's communication strategy should have focused on people who want to receive the injections.

"Communication trainees are taught that volume and intensity are two different concepts."

Therefore, after explaining that the vaccine would not be compulsory - thus lowering the intensity within this group - the government angered "the remaining 50%" by explaining that they would have to wait before receiving the drug. vaccine.

For the specialist, it would have been easy to avoid this pitfall by emphasizing that the priority objective is to vaccinate a "maximum of French people in a minimum of time, but that in view of the difficulty, a decision was taken to start with the most vulnerable ".

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Too many doctors in the media, not enough politicians

Quickly passing on the fact that France has not injected money, "unlike Germany", to "promote the TousAntiCovid application", Stéphane Fouks tackles a new error: the place policies in the media.

"Where there should be about twenty people in charge of government communication, some ministers do not speak," he observes.

This in fact results in a "reduction in the volume of these in the media, leaving room for doctors. Controversy is in the very nature of science, scientists spend their time arguing and their opinions evolve."

Where the shoe pinch is that "the government says it does what scientists say," he adds. 

While the possibility of a third confinement approaches more and more, this communication gives "a feeling of zig-zag" and does not allow "the French to see beyond a short horizon who have the impression of 'a fourth and fifth confinement to come, even with the vaccine there is reason to hope ".