The COVVID Crisis in France is above all and first of all the mask crisis?
Not only. The lack of masks is a common thread and a symbol, but it's not just that. In the book, we do not work on the Covid crisis, but on the management, by the government and the power, of this pandemic. For four years, our work consisted in carefully studying the work of the judges who were seized. By examining it, we obtained clear evidence that the government knew that the problem of masks was enormous. Our rulers even decided, clearly and precisely, to drastically reduce the stock of masks, so that we went from a stock worth 2 billion euros in 2010 to 65 million in 2020. is very clearly established by the investigation. But the work of the judges goes much further, since it shows that beyond the lies on the masks, there was the maintenance of the municipal elections. Not to mention the absence of an inter -ministerial cell. In short, there were a lot of breaches for four months …
Regarding this shortage of masks, which is the most responsible: the one who did not ordered them or the one who did not check the stocks? In other words, Macron or Holland?
When Emmanuel Macron comes to power, there are more than 800 million masks. It was not the billion claimed by scientists for a long time, but we were not far away. For three years, this stock will be disintegrated. We will thus introduce fictitious expiration dates, without real value, which will make that many masks will be destroyed. We will even continue to destroy it during the shortage period when these masks were still perfectly usable. This is how in dint of reducing the stock, we will say to ourselves: “Well, we don't have so many needs as that”, then “anyway, there is no crisis in sight ». It is the desire to reduce the costs that led to these practices.
The government has therefore adapted all its policy and its speech to the shortage of masks?
Yes, except that he never said the word shortage. To say shortage, it came back to recognize the existence of supply problems and therefore, somewhere, a fault. The government preferred to go so far as to say that wearing the mask was not necessarily essential. However, there are in the file exchanges of email, text messages, extracts from the councils of ministers, defense councils, which show very clearly that the mask was a priority, while knowing that, in early January, it did not There were more.
If there had been masks available, can we estimate the number of lives that could have been spared?
No serious study can attest to the number of deaths that could have been avoided if there had been a sufficient number of masks from the start. But Public Health France says there would have been less. In addition, there are not only masks, there are also the municipal elections, which were a source of intense contamination. If there had not been these municipal elections “at all costs”, there would have been less death.
Agnès Buzyn, when she was still Minister of Health, has, it seems, more insightful?
Yes, she was and she knew, from the start, that there would be a problem. He's a doctor. She therefore wanted to immediately warn her superiors, Édouard Philippe and Emmanuel Macron. First, it was not listened to. Second, and there her responsibility is engaged, she left her public health agencies without money, when they cried famine. It then allowed the reduction of the stock of masks and finally involved in her office people who were not at all public health specialists. In fact, all that was public health was not an important element for her, for at least two years, since she was, moreover, responsible for pensions. Anything related to public health was not a major concern. In addition, she agreed to go on the municipal campaign in Paris, when she had absolutely no means to win.
However, she does not hesitate to say, to anyone who wants, that the scientific council is “the stew …”
It's true. Above all, she says that the scientific council is chaired by a guy (François Delfraissy) for whom she has no respect. She proclaims it in her SMS addressed to Emmanuel Macron, Édouard Philippe and others, but she is not listened to. His opinion is not taken into account.
The judges responsible for instructing complaints against the three ministers complain about their progressive isolation. What do they denounce?
This survey is the work of their lives, it is five years of work. There are one million documents collected. However, they were not unloaded from the other files that they instructed in parallel, including that of Eric Dupont-Moretti, who was standing against them. They felt that within the judicial institution, they were put aside. The Élysée also put sticks in the wheels for them in a constant manner, in order to prevent the executive from testifying and accounting for its actions.
-When Édouard Philippe tells the judges that he had two viruses to manage, I quote, “the covid and the opening of umbrella”, is he not quite wrong?
He is not quite wrong and he carefully assumes what he did, as is his chief of staff, who assumes having made mistakes. Édouard Philippe remains straight in his boots and says: “Find me countries that have done better than us? ». In any case, a precise figure sheds light on the first four months of the crisis: on March 11, there are 48 dead identified in France. On July 11, 32,000. It's been 266 dead per day! It's huge. No country in the world, apart from Brazil, has known so much. It is precisely because, during these periods, nothing worked properly.
We know the names of the three judges responsible for the file, but, then, who is “the assassin”?
It's the covid, of course. The covid is “the assassin”. Simply, “the assassin” does that mean? In legal terms, this implies that there was premeditation. And this is clearly established since we see that there have been many complicities: high administration, politicians. There have been around fifty reports, published years before the crisis, which alerted to a possible pandemic …
Isn't it easy to say what should have done or not do four years after the facts?
Our survey allows us to come back to what happened, to light it in a new light, with new elements. It is extremely easy to judge, but it is especially interesting to investigate and determine what did not work. We made this book for these 170,000 victims who never had the tribute ceremony that had been promised.
To read: “The judges and the assassin” by Gérard Davet and Fabrice Lhomme (Flammarion editions) 448 pages, 23 euros.
* Gérard Davet and Fabrice Lhomme are major reporters to the newspaper Le Monde.
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