Bonsoir Teebs
Great post Teebs, and fantastic to hear resistance to this utter nonsense is growing in France.
Personally l have got to the point we're l can't see how anybody can't see through this utter nonsense, for exactly what it is.
The whole government and SAGE need to be arrested and tried for crimes against humanity.
Alas, the bridgehead of liberated territory was only briefly held.
Later today, 4 November, Macron and Veran got enough of their sheep and rubber-stamps back into the assembly to re-insert the date of 16 Feb back into the law.
We shall next see what the Senate does with it - where Macron and Veran have no majority and there appears to be some hostility. They were inclined, as I previously said, to clip the period down to 31 January. We shall now see if they are emboldened to go further after what happened in the last 24 hours.
As "miahoneybee" says, you cannot find this news easily in the UK. Notoriously, the Guardian, which used to be a decent organ of investigative journalism before it was struck down with a bad case of Coronapanicitis, purports to report on "coronavirus around the world" but appears to cherry-pick the news due to the aforementioned illness it is suffering from.
FRENCH SENATE DECIDES
As expected (see previous posts above) the Senate has ratified the proposed legislation for extending the "medical state of emergency" but fixed the end date at 31 January instead of 16 February as the government had requested. (The government initially wanted 1st April, the Senate said no way it has to be 31 January maximum, so the government tried to bargain for 16 February but the Senate stuck to its original guns and fixed 31 January).
Interestingly, however, the Senate amended the law to allow local Prefects to permit the opening of small businesses, and left it up to the local Prefects to decide the conditions. The blanket ban on all shops has thus been compromised in principle.
There is nothing stopping the government, especially with a rubber-stamping majority in the National Assembly, from re-extending the state of emergency over and over beyond 31 January. France is not due for elections until 2022. However, if Germany does not go for some sort of lockdown after the current, very soft, measures end at the end of November - the same time as they are supposed to end in France - then the French government could find it difficult to go alone. As in the UK, the so-called "scientific" or "medical" grounds are increasingly flimsy and the state needs to point to illustrious neighbours - and that means Germany - to endorse its position.
And Germany is having trouble maintaining the covid-narrative, even at the relatively reduced level there. Public mood is shifting. This weekend saw truly massive demonstrations against the measures (silly question: did the BBC report on these?), and German courts are becoming more courageous in taking on the covid-laws. And, Germany heads to the polls in August next year.
If Germany opens for Christmas, Macron is going to find it difficult to tell the French they cannot celebrate.
Meanwhile, a friend in Paris returning from a private late night party yesterday (probably illegal) says she saw one local bar not only open, but having a party, heaving with people and music and, a bit further down the road, another bar-restaurant was open, with diners sitting at tables as if on a normal evening. People are fed-up and unenforceable laws are being quietly ignored.
LATEST FROM FRANCE/PARIS - GOVERNMENT STUMBLES AND RETURN OF THE SPEAKEASY
For his first choice of Prime Minister, Macron appointed Edouard Phillipe, an urbane center-right politician and, at the time, mayor of Le Havre.
Ed was a relative success. The corona panic-demic started under his watch and although he led the country into the first "confinement" (lockdown) he was quick to stress people had a right to some free life. The doomsday scenarios "we are at war!" were left to Macron while Ed just managed things, famously promising that people would have summer holidays.
No sooner was that promise fulfilled, and people started talking of Ed as a potential future competitor for Macron, than he was replaced by Jean Castex.
Now, if it looks like a thug, talks like a thug and acts like a thug ...
Castex has no charisma, no real personality really, and absolutely no charm. That may be forgivable if there was some intellect to compensate, but alas no. A strict catholic and life-long pencil-pusher in the bureaucracy, Monsieur Castex is basically an enforcer. He issues orders, dictats and decrees, and expects everyone to fall in.
Roles have now reversed, whereas in the past Macron made the chest-thumping declarations of fear and doom, he now leaves all of this to Castex - who appears not to realise he is being set up as the fall guy - while Macron occasionally makes pseudo-reasonable remarks about "living with the virus" and "understanding how young people feel".
So, having first announced "reluctantly" a second, though softer lockdown for "at least two weeks" starting beginning of November, Macron then left it to Castex to deliver the news that while the lockdown will end for people and shops on 2 December, bars and restaurants will remain closed and "New Year's Eve will not be normal" while also telling people "don't buy train tickets for Christmas", threatening that they may not even be allowed to get together with their families in other parts of France. (And apparently failing to factor in that if the trains are not running or somehow "controlled", people will just jump in their cars. Or is he planning roadblocks on the highways?)
We wait and see but otherwise, and despite the public facade, life is moving along in a strange pseudo-normality. Last night the lady and I went to one of our usual locals that is supposedly open for "take-away" only, as per current rules. We said we would like a drink while "deciding what to order for take-away" and the smiling patron nodded and guided us to the back of the establishment where the tables are not visible from the windows. And, who did we find already there, nursing a beer, but a local councillor! We all smiled and exchanged greetings.
Our drinks arrived in plastic cups - the one concession the patron told us he had to make because a plastic cup looks like a take-away! Difficult to make the same argument for the plate of cheese and olives that landed with the cocktails and wine.
Two hours later (it was a real ordeal choosing the take-away from the menu!), we took our leave, and leaving the councillor on his nth beer. And by that time, the front of the bar was heaving with drinkers laughing and cheering without a care in the world - and just waiting for their takeaway, of course.
So, maybe not quite as glitzy as the speakeasy shown in famous films about the roaring 20s, but it certainly felt different, and somehow more satisfying than a "normal" night out.
Thst made me smile teebs..
😀 🙂 🙂
