La Peste

A state of emergency

Apologies if this is a repost for you, but when I sent it yesterday, it didn’t go through to most people. Hopefully, this one will work! Again, apologies if you are getting this a second time.

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We spent a few days in Avignon and surrounding towns, and it was interesting to see how various Covid measures were enforced outside a major city like Nice. Basically, the same situation applies, at least on my observation: the pass sanitaire requirement is applied randomly, while people are extremely good at following masking requirements indoors and on public transport.

And just so you know: some places will refuse you admission if you can’t present a pass sanitaire, as we found out in a Nice restaurant when a friend’s phone had gone flat and so couldn’t open the app. We asked to use a charger, but they didn’t have one for an iPhone, they said, and when I asked if it was okay for our friend to stay anyway, that we could vouch for the existence of her pass, we were met with a very firm no. We went somewhere else, and they didn’t ask for the pass.

It will be interesting (one word for it) to see how things work in Australia now that Sydney and Melbourne are opening up.

L’Isle sur la Sorgue

I’ve been reading French media a bit more closely and regularly of late, and there is constant debate about the imposition of the pass sanitaire.

What I didn’t realise is that the pass was only able to be introduced because France is technically in a state of emergency. This was instigated back in 2015, after the terrorist attacks in Paris, and then was reinstated to help deal with Covid. Which means that France has been under this condition for more than three of the last six years.

Late last week, the State Council (Le Conseil d'Etat) released a report examining this situation and you get a sense of their concerns by the fact that they used a quote from Camus at the head of the report:

« Ils se croyaient libres et personne ne sera jamais libre tant qu’il y aura des fléaux »

“They believed themselves free and no one will ever be free as long as there are plagues. "

And they make observations like this (I am relying on Google translate and my own cleaning up):

We can no longer deny the risks induced by too frequent a recourse to states of emergency. Risks, of course, for rights and freedoms which are sometimes considerably reduced […] . But there are also risks for the health and vitality of our democracy, because placing oneself under an exceptional regime always amounts on the one hand to bypassing, in the name of urgency and necessity, the traditional democratic channels, in particular Parliament. But on the other hand [we need] to say two things: that we have not succeeded in anticipating the crises which overwhelm us and that we are not able to face them with the means at our disposal in normal times.

They nonetheless ratified an extension of the state of emergency.

Of course, the looming Presidential election is playing into all this, and one media report points out the similarity between this extension and the timing of the original 2015 emergency provisions:

It is difficult not to be struck by the similarity between the state of health emergency and the state of terrorist emergency. The latter was also renewed in November preceding the 2017 presidential election and until July. Then, the new majority once again extended it, using the moment to write and pass the law strengthening internal security and the fight against terrorism (SILT) of October 30, 2017 which ended the state of urgency but permanently added the main measures to our common law.

Vax and pass sanitaire protests in Avignon

Again, I will be interested to see how all this plays out in Australia, because as supportive as I am of various health measures, serious concerns remain in how we balance necessary protections against the requirements of a free society. We have an obligation to watch closely what governments (and media) do.

To whit—and in further repudiation to that ridiculous Bevan Shields’ article I mentioned last week—this piece in The Guardian:

It is not yet clear where the UK public sits on this continuum and some push back at the notion that there is an acceptance of the current situation.

“The idea that everyone is accepting the new normal is very dangerous,” said Prof Stephen Reicher, a psychologist at the University of St Andrews.

According to Reicher, the government has been “systematically normalising” the UK’s current rate of infections.

“They’ve been acting like this is inevitable, seeming relaxed about infections going up,” he said…

The media also plays a role in setting a perception of what is “normal”, according to Reicher. “[Research shows] that the media changes virtually nobody’s mind,” he said. “But it changes people’s belief about what others think.”

[…]

“The current death rate is equivalent to over 40,000 people a year dying of Covid. This is not normal,” he said.

To finish, as usual, some more photos, per requests.

Stay well, everyone.

Umbrellas in Nice, old town

Ready to watch James Bond 3D.

On the way up to Saint Paul de Vence to see The Maeght Foundation gallery full of Miro, Giacometti and Chagall

“Yesterday, upon the stair, I met a man who wasn't there “

Bonnard, looking out onto the Miro labyrinth

Getting ready to busk near Palais des Papes - Avignon.

Sunflowers in Avignon