It is also worth recalling that French officials adopted this very same approach until March 14. Macron initially refused to adopt strict containment… - Christian Laval

The COVID-19 pandemic is an unprecedented global health, social and economic crisis. Historical comparisons are few, particularly in recent decades. This tragedy constitutes nothing less than a trial for all humanity. The two meanings of the French word "épreuve" captures the dual significance of what we now confront: épreuve in the sense of an ordeal, an immense and painful undertaking, but also a test, an evaluation, or a judgment. The pandemic, in other words, is now testing the capacity of our political and economic systems to cope with a global problem situated at the level of our individual interdependence, which is to say at the very foundation of our social life. Like a dystopia made real, the current situation provides us with a glimpse of what soon awaits humanity if global economic and political structures are unable to radically and rapidly transform in order to confront the climate change crisis.

Two relations must therefore be carefully separated here: the citizenry’s attachment to the public service, and healthcare in particular, in no way suggests adherence to public authority or public power in its various forms, but rather suggests an attachment to services whose essential function is to meet the public's need. Far from disclosing an underlying identification with the nation, this attachment gestures toward a sense of a universal that crosses borders, and accordingly renders us sensitive to the trials our "pandemic co-citizens" are enduring, whether they are Italian, Spanish, or live beyond European borders. We are extremely skeptical of Macron's promise to be the first leader to question "our developmental model" after the crisis is over, and there are plenty of reasons to think that the drastic economic measures currently in place will eventually share the same fate as those enacted during the 2008 economic crisis: we will likely see a concerted effort to "return to normal" — i.e., return to our otherwise uninterrupted destruction of the planet amidst increasingly conditions of social inequality. And we fear the enormous stimulus packages designed to "save the economy" will once again be borne on the backs of the lowest-paid workers and taxpayers.

But there was an even more surprising twist in the president's March 12 address: Emmanuel Macron was suddenly and almost miraculously transformed into a staunch defender of the welfare state, and of . He even affirmed the impossibility of reducing everything to the logic of the market! Many commentators and politicians, several of whom are on the left, eagerly welcomed Macron's recognition of the irreplaceable importance of our public services. Yet what we witnessed here was really little more than a delayed response to Macron's public confrontation with a doctor during his visit to the on February 27. The doctor, a professor of neurology, insisted Macron provide the public hospitals with an "investment shock" ("choc d’attractivité"), and Macron assented to the doctor's demands, at least in principle. It was of course immediately recognized that Macron's subsequent pronouncements were completely hollow, and they in no way called into the question the neoliberal policies his government has methodically pursued for years.