New Year’s Eve 2020

On December 18, 2020, a pale and dehydrated Emmanuel Macron released a video to announce his own covid diagnosis.

Macron had from the first taken the virus seriously, delivering a solemn speech in March 2020 with the refrain, “Nous sommes en guerre” (We are at war), in which he also announced that his controversial reform measures–notably pension reform, a flashpoint for the previous several months–would be suspended. In spite of this welcome news, the speech was not altogether well-received, and there developed a half-hearted debate over whether “war” was really the correct metaphor.

Macron, to be sure, did not always follow social distancing. Just before his diagnosis, he had held a working dinner at the Élysée that included his Prime Minister Jean Castex, the President of the National Assembly Richard Ferrand, François Bayrou, head of the MoDems and a key parliamentary ally, Stanislas Guérini, head of La République en Marche . . .

(The original tweeter is an enemy of Macron; the retweet is pro-Macron.)

But those he had potentially infected were not confined to France. Macron, because of his active presidency and “tactile nature,” may have taken out of circulation much of the European Union leadership on the eve of the Brexit deal.

Having now recovered, Macron will give (actually, has given) his voeux, the presidential New Years Eve speech, at 8 pm on December 31. The speech has been a tradition in the French Republic since 1958: a time for good wishes, for a summary of the previous year, and for hopes of the future (La vie publique).

Macron’s voeux, in 2017, 2018,  2019, and now in 2020,  have all included the same themes: building a better future, the importance of the European Union as a power and genuine counterweight to China and the US, education, climate, jobs, mutual respect.  But each year there have also been one or two particular issues. 

2017

In 2017, just months after his election and in the wake of a campaign against Marine Le Pen, who made French culture (as threatened by Islam), a major issue, he had to say something about immigration.  In this speech he promised a right of asylum to genuine refugees, in flight because of racial, ethnic, religious or political differences–but France could not take in everyone, nor could they allow people to live in France in disobedience of the laws. His new asylum law satisfied no one, tightening up the rules for refugees, but not completely stopping the flow (Human Rights Watch August 4, 2018); as for immigrants, France follows the rules (the Dublin Accords) of the EU. It was a newcomer’s speech, rather awkwardly delivered, but good enough.

2018

Macron’s most substantive speech by far was at the end of 2018.  The Gilet Jaunes demonstrations had started in November 2018, continuing through to the end of the year.  But Macron clearly thought they were over and that, moreover, he had come up with a political counter to the movement: the “Great Debate,” a series of local meetings throughout the country which allowed ordinary citizens to express their grievances.  Macron attended some, so effectively that his political opponents complained that he was in effect campaigning for the upcoming European Parliament elections.  

Macron was also inclined to be conciliatory.  He understood, he said, that there was much anger against globalization and the “ultra(neo)liberalism of financiers,” against an overly complex administrative system (he is for deregulation), against the changes in French society that “interrogate” French identity.  Migration, he noted, causes anxiety that is “instrumentalized by demagogues”(Le Pen).  Moreover the great world order set up in 1945 had been challenged by rising powers (China) and “the bullying behavior of certain of our allies” (the United States).  

In the end he promised three things: “hope,” “dignity,” and, most importantly, “truth.”  Truth, he said, had to be protected from “false information, manipulation, propaganda,” as well as “the cult of immediacy [and] permanent commentary.” They as a society had to rebuild confidence in “truth”–they had, in effect, to get away from the conspiratorial, paranoid mindset created or spread by online sources and social media. The French have been grappling with some kind of regulation, thus far not very successfully, of the social media giants.

2019

The Gilets Jaunes did not fade in 2019, against his hopes.  Indeed, 2019 became the full year of the Gilets Jaunes–exhausting, frustrating, repetitive, increasingly divorced from the issues that had fueled it and dwindling in numbers.  Looking forward to 2020, however, Macron felt hopeful.  It would be the year of ecology, of the preservation of the planet, of job creation.  He recalled the burning of Notre Dame and the pain of seeing the spire fall; but he used a turn of phrase he has often used, that France is “a nation of builders.”  They would rebuild Notre Dame; they would make 2020 a year of “the reinvention of the quality of life.”

2020

For this horrible year, Macron devoted much time to the suffering and courage of the French people in regard to Covid, ending with the assurances that France would rebuild–”a nation of builders”–and make the country whole in the coming months, with the vaccine.  They would help the most fragile, restore their hotels, their restaurants, their tourist industry; the country had been through an épreuve, a test of suffering.

In terms of issues, he mentioned only the recently concluded Brexit, an event brought about, he said, by a disinformation campaign; he reaffirmed his belief that France was greater in Europe than she is alone.  But he also did something he had not done before in such speeches, something very “American”: the naming of individuals who had faced difficulties and challenges.  The businesswoman who had “innovated” to keep her bookstore alive, the elderly woman who was the first to be vaccinated in her nursing home, the 11-year-old boy who found a way to help the isolated elderly by turning over his tablet so they could communicate, the garbage collector who continued his labors throughout the pandemic, the three soldiers who had just died in Mali.  

Spring, he said, is coming.

May it come soon.

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And here’s an addendum. Jean-Luc, the garbage collector in Guyane, was one of those mentioned in the speech. He was not watching, but was immediately inundated with messages from friends and strangers. He had a message for the president: he had not yet received the 1,000-euro prime promised to front-line workers in the spring. He wants it too (franceinfo Guyane, January 1, 2021).

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