The anecdotes, bloopers and errors by governments and authorities in handling COVID-19 over the past 12 months are piling up. Although the matter is very serious and should not be taken lightly, we, the confined and restricted, should not deprive ourselves from an occasional humorous distraction. In such an exceptional situation some of those errors are expected, and I am sure the US, Brazil and many EU countries would be right up there on the podium, but today I will focus on France.
A little bit of background: France has been one of the worst hit countries, and in terms of numbers (anyway you look at it) it is in the top 10. According to many, it is also one of the worst managed cases, but I will not vouch for that, as on one hand I am not an expert “evaluator” and on the other, there are many candidate nations for this honor!
The French President, the Prime Minister and a few key ministers have formed a “Defense Council” which has been meeting almost weekly (initially in a bunker) to run the nation, defend against the virus and make quickly executable decisions. The Defense Council is not new and is included in the constitution and has been activated from time to time on extreme occasions (terrorist attacks, for example), but its primary use was intended to be during wars.
So the French have had this council which meets almost every week, in a special place, reviews the situation, comes up with decisions put in place by decrees, and all its deliberations are classified defense-secret. As a result, people have been told things every two weeks or so about changes in regulations, without the changes being explained, or sometimes even the President has announced something different from the Prime Minister. Consequently the trust has vanished.
Again, the apparent errors are not unique to France, but the way this Defense Council has operated and the ritual in which the restrictions and laws have been announced only to be revised and/or rolled back without explanation has been quite specific to France (and maybe UK) among the democracies.
The other day, as I was thinking about this ritual and the way the Prime Minister and the ministers come and announce things without explaining and justifying the usefulness of the measures, and then disappearing, reminded me of the Groundhog Day, which is a popular North American tradition observed in the United States and Canada on February 2. It is a jolly superstition that if a groundhog emerging from its burrow on this day sees its shadow due to clear weather, it will retreat to its den and winter will persist for six more weeks; if it does not see its shadow because of cloudiness, spring will arrive early.
So every 2 weeks in the past few months, the Prime Minister emerges, speaks in the limelight of media, then retreats, and COVID-19 persists. I am not comparing anyone to a groundhog, but it certainly looks like the French have been celebrating the Groundhog Day every two weeks in the past few months.
Paris, March 26, 2021,
Zeejay