Is that because you were relatively unaffected by the downsides of the various restrictions? It can't be because the overall Covid fatality rate is better in France, becase it's about the same as the UK.
Is that because you were relatively unaffected by the downsides of the various restrictions? It can't be because the overall Covid fatality rate is better in France, becase it's about the same as the UK.
And as i said, the approval rating of Macron and his PM during the initial waves, Édouard Philippe, are much higher then before the pandemic, and literally unprecedented for a French president since moving to the current system ( 5 year mandates, etc.). The last French president with a similar approval rating was Chirac, and he passed away last year.
Comparing fatality rates between countries is complicated for a number of reasons ( weather, organisation of cities and families, customs ( e.g. french people used to kiss each other on the cheek when meeting, even complete strangers), age distribution, hospital capacity, medical reserves, etc.)
It seems to me there is very little clear link between how a country responded, and the overall death count.
Also worth noting, while the richer classes were in their villas ordering food delivery service, the rest of us often had to wait in line for over an hour (the supermarket only took 5-10 people at a time) sometimes only to find empty shelves without toilet paper or pasta.
Then, because the hospitals didn't have any resources for the flow of patients, they actively triaged patients before they even reached the hospitals. There are many accounts of people dying or getting close to death because the emergency services refused to give them services, because they had strict directives to only care for people with specific symptoms.
Then of course, there's the "essential workers". The indispensable tiny hands of the capitalist machines. These have been the most exposed to the Covid and have ensured that private corporations such as Amazon profited more than ever during the pandemic, yet saw exactly 0 benefits from their hard and hazardous labor.
We could talk about food security. That official State-financed food banks (such as Les resto du coeur) closed their doors, at the same time that undeclared work came to a stop due to the confinement, leading the most precarious among us to actual famine. Many city halls and local non-profits had to improvise to deliver basic food for survival to millions of people, because the government and its vassals failed their job.
Finally, the government, to my knowledge, did not requisition the many resources at its disposal. I read that story about a clothing workshop from Paris who had to insist with the prefecture to be turned into a somewhat-official mask-producing facility.
So, what did the government do? Apart from tearing down our lives and profiting (in capital) from it? Apart from their theater plays on television to let us know there is no danger (yeah, they Chernobyled us again), masks are useless, and a strong racist police is the only weapon against the virus?
Edit: Not forgetting the financial repercussions, which I suspect as a helpless taxpayer, will burden my family for the rest of my working life. The UK has already imposed a whole new tax, to try and dig the NHS out of the hole it is in.