Highlights: Covid-19: four years later, still no tribute for victims and caregivers. The first French confinement was decreed by Emmanuel Macron in the face of the coronavirus pandemic. A bill had also been tabled by a member of the majority to create a national day of tribute to caregivers and victims of Covid, every March 17. “There were around 160,000 deaths and we moved on very quickly to something else,” considers Pierre Schwob, president of the Inter-Urgence collective.

Four years ago, the first French confinement was decreed by Emmanuel Macron in the face of the coronavirus pandemic. Collectives of caregivers and patients are still waiting for a tribute to the victims…

Covid-19: four years later, still no tribute for victims and caregivers

Four years ago, the first French confinement was decreed by Emmanuel Macron in the face of the coronavirus pandemic.

Collectives of caregivers and patients are still waiting for a tribute to the victims of Covid-19 and to those who took all the risks to provide care.

It was a government promise.

French President Emmanuel Macron, photographed during a meeting on Covid and the health pass, at Fort Brégançon, in Bormes-les-Mimosas, in the south of France, in December 2021 (illustrative photo).

AFP - NICOLAS TUCAT

By: RFI Follow

“

Obviously there will be a time of tribute, of mourning, for the victims of Covid.

» Promise signed

Gabriel Attal

, then government spokesperson, in April 2021. A bill had also been tabled by a member of the majority to create a national day of tribute to caregivers and victims of Covid, every March 17 .

The initiative never came to fruition.

“

There were around 160,000 deaths and we moved on very quickly to something else

,” considers Pierre Schwob, president of the Inter-Urgence collective.

Because the government wants to forget its own shortcomings during the pandemic and above all not to reopen the file of the public hospital crisis, he believes.

“

There is a political will to erase what happened with Covid-19,

according to Mr. Schwob.

Or at least not to come back to it.
Because we have shown the unpreparedness of our institutions in the face of this risk.
Politically speaking, Covid was not very promising.

“It is important to build consensus around this duty to remember”

A difficult silence to live with, for families.

Some were unable to say goodbye to loved ones due to strict health protocols during the crisis.

A tribute would therefore make it possible to heal the wounds and move forward, explains Julie Grasset, president of Cœur Vide 19, an association helping victims' families.

“

It is important,”

she argues,

“to build consensus around this duty of memory, to allow those who remain to continue.
It aims for us to do work of introspection, to succeed in learning from things that did not go well, in order to be able to improve.

There is hope, all the same: Frédéric Valletoux, Minister Delegate in charge of Health and Prevention under Catherine Vautrin, Emmanuel Macron's seventh Minister of Health – the sixth since 2020 –,

tells the newspaper

Le Parisien

that he wants to bring up the subject again on the table.

To rereadFrance: four years after confinement, what health and economic consequences of Covid-19?

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Covid-19: four years later, still no tribute for victims and caregivers

Covid-19: four years later, still no tribute for victims and caregivers

“It is important to build consensus around this duty to remember”

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