Emmanuel Macron refused this Thursday to apologize for the health situation in France -

Jacques Witt / SIPA

  • This Thursday, Emmanuel Macron refused to apologize for his decision not to reconfine at the end of January.

  • Since the start of the health crisis, the executive has been careful not to repent on its management of the epidemic, a choice made by other governments in Europe.

  • Is the excuse really a taboo in politics?

Since the start of the health crisis, and even long before, comparisons between France and Germany have been rising, as their management diverges.

This week has offered us a new big gap between the Rhine, with on one side Chancellor Angela Merkel apologizing for backing down on new restrictions being considered for Easter, while Emmanuel Macron refusing any mea culpa for not having confined at the end of January.

A presidential speech strongly criticized, but which sums up how the excuse is banished from the language of the executive.

Before the president, Prime Minister Jean Castex had also refused to “regret” about the management on the live Twitch of Samuel Etienne during this month of March, just like the Minister of Health Olivier Véran on the issue. masks.

Is the excuse a political taboo?

Hide his weaknesses that I cannot see

"Most of the time, politicians do not like to apologize, because for them, it is proof of bankruptcy and weakness," says Alexandre Eyries, teacher-researcher in Information Sciences and of communication at the University of Bourgogne-Franche Comté and author of the book

Political Communication 3.0

.

And in a time when political opposition and media attention shoot up at the slightest quack, "politicians are convinced that recognizing a fault is the best way to give the baton to get beaten."

This feeling would be even worse in France in the name of an arrogance specific to the country, according to Axel Assouline, communication advisor and speaker at the Sorbonne: “We come from a monarchy of divine right where we did not apologize.

Added to this the French normative heritage and the Fifth Republic with its tutelary figure of the semi-monarch President, embodied in the foreground by De Gaule… ”

The virtue of the excuse

But are politicians really making the right choice by banning the excuse from their vocabulary, especially in this period of health crisis?

Admittedly, appearing unsinkable and staying the course "whatever the cost" may seem reassuring in an uncertain world, "but what the population expects from the government is humanity and the heart", slices Alexandre Eyries, not infallibility.

Same observation with Axel Assouline, for whom the time is with the vulnerability among the politicians more than with the invincible posture: “No one expects from someone, even from the President of the Republic, that he is infallible.

The basis of trust between a people and a President is trust.

And staying the course doesn't mean you can't apologize.

The French expect their leaders to have a posture of honesty, humility and frankness.

"

And if the superman seemed to please in a De Gaul or a Louis XIV, the times have changed and never offering an apology or going back on his decisions can now seem like misplaced arrogance.

“Today, the population is suspicious of the political class and finds it above ground.

To pass for a superhuman, it is even more cut off from the world ”, judge Alexandre Eyries.

For Axel Assouline, the excuse allows those who say it to be more authentic, sincere, more human.

The right opportunity

Proof of this is that when Boris Johnson apologized for the catastrophic health management of the United Kingdom during the milestone of 100,000 deaths from the coronavirus, his popularity had increased slightly.

Ditto for Angela Merkel and her reversal on Easter, rather welcomed, despite some controversy.

In Germany, the newspaper 

Der Spiegel

 praised the Chancellor's honesty in acknowledging her wrongdoing, as did the 

Süddeutsche Zeitung.

Should Emmanuel Macron have been inspired by it?

The situation is very different, notes Axel Assouline: “Angela Merkel is at the end of her mandate after sixteen years, she has nothing more to prove and no longer has an election thereafter.

The context was more favorable to an apology, as she renounced more stringent measures.

By apologizing, she offered more freedom to the Germans.

Not to mention a Germany more versed in the tradition of apology and repentance after the Second World War.

Very different situations therefore, and the teacher reminds that a good excuse depends above all on a good context.

We apologize for the comparison.

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Coronavirus: Was Emmanuel Macron right not to confine at the end of January?

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  • Confinement

  • Communication

  • Emmanuel Macron

  • Angela Merkel

  • Coronavirus