Earlier this summer, French President Emmanuel Macron evoked the country’s “entry into a war economy in which I believe we will organize ourselves in the long term.” It would have sounded familiar to anyone who paid attention during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Announcing the first Covid lockdowns in March 2020, Macron said six times that France was “at war” – with Covid. “Never has France had to take such decisions in peacetime,” he said, persisting with the militaristic rhetoric that served to justify locking an entire nation inside their homes for weeks on end.
It was a stretch, of course. France wasn’t ‘at war’ with a virus. But the language was so hyperbolic coming from someone in a position of the utmost national authority that people were either frightened or convinced they were fulfilling a patriotic duty by sitting at home all day and watching Netflix. In any case, if you questioned or opposed Macron’s war framing, you were branded self-centered and irresponsible by those on whom the rhetoric had worked.
The fear-mongering gave Macron and his government the wiggle room to limit people’s liberties in the absence of substantial opposition. Poor domestic policies and unpopular decisions apparently get carte blanche if they’re in service of a war of some kind.