Macron and the French call a truce as the coronavirus spreads

Brittany, France

The last time Emmanuel Macron attempted a fireside chat, following the gilets-jaunes rebellion, there was still amid the smouldering remnants of his pride and vanity some vestige of the Jupiter President. He may have made mistakes. He may have assumed, wrongly, that the protesters could see ahead as clearly as he. But it was the people – sadly irreplaceable – whom history would judge to have been fundamentally at fault.

Last night, seeking to reassure his fellow citizens that France had got a grip on the coronavirus, Macron decided to go instead for the full De Gaulle. Against the gilded backdrop of the Élysée Palace, flanked by the flags of France and the EU, he spoke clearly and concisely, employing the full gravitas of his office without, unusually for him, appearing to speak down to his audience, numbered as it was in the tens of millions.

His message was stark. The Government was doing everything possible, but with an unstoppable pandemic about to erupt, the situation was the worst of its kind for a hundred years.

For once, the circumstances in which Macron finds himself are not of his making. Like Boris Johnson on the opposite side of the Channel, he is being tested on knowledge for which he was completely unprepared.

The British PM has adopted a gradualist approach, relying primarily on the step-by-step guidance offered by his chief medical officer and national science adviser. Macron, in tacit acknowledgment of the fact that five French departments sit cheek-by-jowl with Italy, where the crisis is already in full flood, clearly felt he had less scope for caution.

All the resources of the state have been activated. In particular, the much-vaunted French health service has moved into overdrive, with every doctor, every nurse, every ambulance worker and paramedic, every social worker and – crucially – ­ every emergency bed thrown into the fight.

From Monday, all schools and universities will be shut for the duration. Sporting contests, including football and rugby, have been banned, and gatherings of any kind involving more than 500 people are prohibited.

Companies have been asked to explore, as a matter of urgency, ways in which staff can work from home, and measures, in part indemnified by the state, will be brought in to ensure than no one is left without the necessary resources to buy food and other necessities.

Supermarkets are to remain open, but customers are advised to shop carefully and as infrequently as possible. The elderly ­– those aged 70 and above – are exhorted to stay home until advised otherwise and to rely on younger family members, neighbours and social services to attend to their needs. Those in care homes have been warned that family visits will not take place in the weeks ahead and that staff – who could easily carry the infection both in and out – will perforce go about their duties with a high degree of caution.

As to the future, Macron knows little more than the rest of us. During last night’s 20-minute television address, he expressed the hope that French and European research would be able to come up with “treatments” in the coming weeks and even a vaccine some months after that.

Until then, he called on his countrymen and women to show a sense of responsibility in how they behaved towards each other. The French, he said, had to learn to respect each other’s personal space – something for which they are not best noted. Not only had they to wash their hands after every person-to-person encounter, but there could be no handshakes and certainly no kissing of the cheeks. “While such gestures might appear harmless to you,” he added, “they save lives.”

And so he wound towards his inevitable conclusion. France remained a great nation. Its people were fully aware of the human condition, its scientists were among the finest in the world. As President, he would be working closely with his colleagues in Europe to help end the present scourge.

Frontiers might have to be closed. He was not discounting this possibility. But the fact could not be ignored that the liberties enjoyed by France had been constructed in a European context. In the meantime, as the epidemic accelerated its spread, the priority was to help the most vulnerable, and it was up to each and everyone to play their part. He knew he could count on them.

“Vive la République et vive la France.”

Cut to the Marseillaise and the illuminated exterior of the Élysée.

For the millions watching, it was an impressive performance. Leaders are remembered not by what they said during their election campaigns, but for how they respond to a crisis. Macron did not come well out of the gilets-jaunes experience. Nor was it any better when he took on the trade unions over pension reform. In both instances, he survived by the skin of his teeth. But with the coronavirus, he may at last have found his moment.

No one looking on as he delivered his address could have doubted his sincerity and his depth of feeling. This is a crisis for France, with fraternité in the front line. At such times the nation looks to the Élysée, and for the moment at least Macron looks equal to the task.

France is a notoriously difficult country to govern. Its people never forgive those whom they elect to be their leaders. But sometimes – just sometimes – a crisis can bring out the best even in the most truculent.

In central Brittany, where I live, the President has been aided by the fact that there is as yet no obvious sense of panic. I’m sure this is general throughout France. At our local supermarket this morning, the shelves were mostly full. There appeared to be something of a run on UHT milk (a foul concoction) and Sensodyne toothpaste, but not on toilet paper or pasta. All the staples were there in abundance, and, to me at least, everything seemed normal.

In the town itself, there were many fewer people about than was usual for a Friday, and market day on Wednesday was a bit of a wash-out, partly because of the sense of impending doom, but also because of the rain that has poured down sans-cesse since September.

At our local bar, Les Fous, there was a distinct nervousness in the air. We joked about keeping a metre apart and offered the “corona wave” in place of the usual round of handshakes and kisses. The proprietor wondered if his bar would be shut down by decree later in the month, only to add that he might close voluntarily in any case once the crisis moves to the next level.

It’s not as if our immediate neighbour, Jean-françois, hasn’t enough on his plate already. His daughter’s husband dropped dead suddenly last year, aged just 32, leaving her and her infant son to cope on their own. Céline is a trained social worker, who cares for the elderly in a home some 25 kilometres to the north. Her workload is expected to increase markedly in the weeks ahead.

Jean-françois and his wife are doing everything they can to look after le petit Louis while his mother is at work, meaning that we only see them now a couple of times a week.

Meanwhile, another couple of houses down, Cécile, from the Belgian border, has separated from her husband, and with two young children to raise is finding it hard to make ends meet. Enedis, which supplies her electricity, cut her off a couple of weeks back, but, while the mayor sorts things out, Jean-françois has reconnected her with a cable that runs surreptitiously from the pylon in our front garden.

Finally, the house opposite, built 50 years ago by our old friend Alexis, who died in 2007 at the age of 74, stands empty after its owner, Jean-Yves – a world-class misanthrope – was finally taken away by social services after it was ruled that his living quarters had become a health hazard. Both home and owner, you may be assured, are in a state of acute structural decay.

Now it could be that such matters will appear small potatoes as the coronavirus exacts its toll in a community where the average age is in the low sixties and where the principle economic driver, other than out-of-town box stores, is the ever-expanding maison de retraite, housing several hundred crusties.

But if you really want to know who the immediate victims of the coronavirus are in our neck of the woods, you need look no further than me and my wife. Louisa [for it is she] has spent the last two months getting stuff ready for an exhibition of her paintings in Cannes, which was due to take place in April.

That is now seriously in doubt. I cannot imagine that it will be allowed. But as I look out from my front window, the grass is awakening and the dandelions are already breaking through the gravel in our front path. Life, as I like to say, goes on until it stops.