In his speech of December 31, the President of the Republic returned to the Covid-19 epidemic which “changed our lives” in 2020. He thanked the French, assuring them that ” everything is possible in 2021 “.
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If more evidence was needed of Emmanuel Macron’s change of foot in the face of the health crisis, his wishes for the new year confirm his political change. A year ago, the Head of State assured that the pension reform would be completed and urged the French to take responsibility by drawing on a Kennedy-style repertoire. “Let us always remember that we have more duties than rights with regard to France,” he said. Since then, the pandemic has done its work. Emmanuel Macron donned, Thursday, December 31, the clothes of a protective rather than offensive president, sitting in an armchair, by a fireplace, like Valéry Giscard d’Estaing in his time.
During these fifteen minutes of speech, rather than asking for effort and responsibility from the French, the Head of State multiplied the praise and thanks. “Let us be proud. Proud to be us, the French, France. My dear compatriots”, he declared. Rather than overlook, the President of the Republic has told the story of a handful of ordinary French people – a nurse, a garbage collector, an entrepreneur, a bookseller; he also summoned the memory of the three gendarmes killed during an intervention in Puy-de-Dôme and the three soldiers killed in Mali, in tribute to “the thousands of anonymous who, committed and united, held our country in the ‘ordeal “.
Over the course of the epidemic, Emmanuel Macron has been in turn warlord, containment advisor (” Read! “), defender of the return of the” happy days “, or leader pragmatic not hesitating to provide health advice. Thursday evening, he remained in a certain proximity, without interfering in the health questions posed by the New Years Eve of the French. “I am fully aware, by the decisions that I had to make, of the sacrifices that I asked of you”, he launched, before justifying himself and thanking the French for their “civility” . “I am sincerely convinced that we made the right choices, at the right time.”
“Every French person who wishes must be able to be vaccinated”
The Head of State did not fail to address one of the hottest health issues of the moment, the vaccine strategy, criticized for its slowness by scientists and in the opposition. “I will not let anyone play with the safety and the good conditions in which the vaccination must be done, assured the Head of State, I will not let more, for bad reasons, an unjustified slowness settle down. Each French who wishes it must be vaccinated. “A few hours before his speech, the Minister of Health, Olivier Véran, began to defuse the controversy by announcing that caregivers aged 50 and over could be vaccinated” from Monday “and that Vaccination centers would open in town “before the beginning of February” to start vaccinating people aged 75 and over, then 65 and over.
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