Editorial of the “World”. In sixteen months, the mandate of Emmanuel Macron will end at the end of a particularly shocked five-year term. Little remains of the initial intention of the President of the Republic to carry out the “transformation” of the country. For a year, the epidemic crisis has reversed priorities and imposed its tempo, without yet seeing the end. In this context, the traditional wishes to the French presented on December 31st first appeared as a lesson in humility. No precise announcement, nor martial declaration concerning the course of the year.
Scared by the magnitude of the second wave, the head of state has learned to be wary of his willful temperament and optimistic. Even if the vaccine is there, the country is still facing a long health test. The curfew hour has just been brought forward in the most affected departments and the scientific council considers probable an “uncontrolled resumption” of the epidemic after the end of year festivities. At least during the first months, 2021 will therefore be marked by “the restrictions” and the “sacrifices” which have been the lot of the past year, assumed Mr. Macron. With, moreover, the strong impact of the economic crisis, which will result in a surge in unemployment. After the “whatever the cost” of 2020, the Head of State is now talking about the “whatever happens” of 2021, a sort of fatalistic finding in the face of a virus that has not said its last word.
Despite everything, on four occasions, Emmanuel Macron has advocated “hope” by not only relying on “human genius” which encouraged the rapid arrival of vaccines, but also on the mobilization of the French. Powerless to draw a safe future, the Head of State intends on the other hand to take advantage of the crisis to correct the lack of empathy for which he is accused. By singling out in an unusual way the names of French women and men who distinguished themselves during the crisis, he sought to break the verticality of his five-year term and tried to create a positive dynamic around resilience and heroism on a daily basis. All at the cost of a fiction, that of “a people united in the ordeal”.
In reality, the pre-election year which is beginning is an accelerator of divisions. Vaccination has barely started when the executive is already taken to task by the opposition and part of the medical profession who reproach him for his excess of caution. A few hours before the intervention of the Head of State, the Minister of Health, Olivier Véran, had to accelerate the tempo by announcing that voluntary health personnel, aged over 50, will be able to be vaccinated as of Monday. In the process, Emmanuel Macron affirmed that he would not let “an unjustified slowness set in”.
As in 2020, the management of the epidemic will remain the decisive criterion to judge its toll . Despite the failures on masks and tests and a persistent mistrust of political leaders, the head of state has so far managed to maintain his electoral base. But the final test will be that of the vaccine. Its success will depend on its ability to lead the most optimistic part of the population around a reconstruction project by 2030 that now closely mixes, as Mr. Macron outlined on Thursday, European construction and identity. French, economic recovery and ecological transition, the defense of secularism and the fight against discrimination. The tip of the hat to the youth, the great sacrificed of the health crisis, was made to build a dynamic around the “new French morning”. For now, this is only a slogan.