PARIS (LifeSiteNews) — You probably remember that, earlier this year, France’s outgoing president Emmanuel Macron insulted those who refused to take the COVID experimental “vaccine.” In short, he told a national daily: “The unvaxxed, I really feel like pissing them off. And so we’re going to keep on doing that, to the very end. That’s the strategy.” Shortly afterwards, the “vaccine pass” came into effect, depriving those who did not have a sufficient mix of jabs and infections of all cultural and leisure activities, restaurants and cafés, fast trains, and even out-door sports.
But the profane word was “affectionate,” Macron has now declared.
During the presidential campaign that will end on Sunday with the run-off between Macron and challenger Marine Le Pen, the (mis-)management of the COVID crisis was not as much to the fore as it should have been. Candidates appear to have been wary of frightening off voters when so many have fallen for the official COVID narrative. However, Le Pen has repeatedly and strongly stated that, once elected, she plans to reinstate the 15,000 (according to official numbers) health workers who were suspended without pay, unemployment benefits, or indeed any kind of income, with full restitution of their suspended salaries.
She has also committed to scrapping the vaccine pass, which for the moment is only “suspended” and can be reactivated without a vote until July 31.
When the presidential candidates meet with ordinary citizens, however, exasperation with Macron’s lockdowns, the closing of hospital beds, compulsory masking, curfews, disguised mandatory vaccination and other mishandling of French society is expressed with a vengeance.
“You muzzled the children,” one woman reminded Macron. Another added that their development had been seriously harmed by the policy. “You are perfectly right,” Macron replied, “and we’re watching over that” – despite the fact that some children have seen no unmasked people outside of their family for nearly two years!
One of the ladies who personally refused the “vaccine,” and she calmly confronted Macron with his statement about wanting to “piss off” – “emmerder”, in French, which means “covering with s***.” It was at this point that Macron said that the insult was “affectionate.” When challenged, he also denied that he had called the unvaxxed “sub-citizens.” What he had said, though, is that the unvaxxed are “irresponsible individuals; an irresponsible individual is no longer a citizen,” which is even worse.
“If you are reelected, how far will you go in pissing off the unvaxxed?” the woman asked. Macron answered that measures would remain as long as the “acute phase” of the pandemic is present.
This could go on forever. On April 8, three days before his claim to have been “affectionate”, he told the internet media Brut that the vaccine pass could be reactivated if more than 2,000 “critical care” beds are occupied by COVID patients. He added that if “next autumn or winter we were to be in an uncontrolled situation, it’s an instrument that has shown itself to be intelligent and proportionate.”
Many unsaid facts invalidate these assertions: the “critical care” beds quoted through the COVID crisis have turned out to have a wide definition that includes patients who simply need constant surveillance or who have started recovering and have been moved out of intensive care. All are not “COVID” patients: at least a third, careful assessment of official statistics shows, have another serious illness and also test positive for COVID. As for the vaccine pass’s “intelligence,” as a public health measure, it is widely disputed since those who receive the vaccine can catch and pass on COVID. In fact, a majority of current COVID patients actually received the jab, the second shot, and even “boosters” in many cases.
An increasing number of adverse events and even deaths has been documented in the European Union, with well over 1.5 million adverse events reported for the mRNA and AstraZeneca shots.
Last week, a 38-year-old French fisherman from Etaples, in the north of France, became the first patient to obtain a court order for an official medical examination that aims to determine whether the thrombopenia he contracted days after his first jab in May 2021 is related to the “vaccine.” Jean-Philippe Becquelin can no longer work, and his life has been totally disrupted as he risks serious hemorrhage at the slightest cut. The official examination is expected to last at least eight months.
Among the many adverse events, from flu-like symptoms to death, one is attracting special interest at the moment, as a constituted group of women gave witness at the French Senate over their disrupted menstrual cycle. The group, “Où est mon cycle” (“where is my period”), relied on social media to obtain evidence from personally affected women. Many describe severe disruption, pain, hormone problems, and a total absence of periods for several months. One woman who got her first jab 18 months ago because she was afraid she would lose her job has yet to recover her normal rhythm.
But Macron is sticking to his narrative. In a lengthy op-ed he penned on Wednesday in the Figaro, a supposedly right-wing daily that caters mainly for the wealthier portions of society, the outgoing president paid a highly unusual tribute (for him!) to French history and culture – all behind a paywall. France’s main value, he wrote, is “liberty.”
“The French [citizen] is the person for whom liberty is an unsurpassable ideal. Not the liberty of emptiness, that is, in refusing the vaccine, which is, in reality tyranny for others. But the liberty of the citizen that is founded in reason and fits in the social contract,” he wrote.
“There is no liberty for the enemies of liberty,” was the slogan of the French Revolution under the 1793-1794 “Terreur,” when “suspects” blamed for their faith or their attachment to the King and the “old regime” received summary judgments and were imprisoned, guillotined, or even underwent genocide, as was the case in the Vendée region.
That is the whole point of the “social contract”: it rejects the existence of the transcendent laws of God and says human societies are founded on the adhesion of citizens who renounce the “state of nature” to benefit from life in organized groups. Such ideology ultimately rejects the natural precedence of the first of human groups, the family, and subjects morals and laws to the will of the people.
Much will depend on who wins the election next Sunday. Macron has made clear that COVID tyranny will remain if he gets a second five-year term (which he hopes to prolong into a seven-year term by asking for a revision of the Constitution). As president, he has plunged France into unprecedented public debt, promoted the culture of death through abortion and dislocation of the family, and clamped down on educational freedoms by making home-schooling next to impossible as of next year.
He has also deeply offended many French citizens with his arrogance, which is the word most heard at present at café counters where grassroots commentators often give quite an accurate view of what the people think.
Meanwhile, on the COVID front, the number of hospitalized people has remained quite stable despite a surge in infections since the (pre-electoral) easing of restrictions in mid-March, including the suspension of the vaccine passport and the end of mandatory masking everywhere except in public transport and hospitals. This surge clearly passed its peak at the end of March.
Interestingly, when the restrictions were lifted – the new surge had started on March 3 – the more fearful complained that the government was playing with fire and that the pandemic was sure to fill the hospitals, and the graveyards, once more. French health minister Olivier Véran downplayed the issue, stating that countries that had kept all their restrictions in place, such as Italy and Germany, were experiencing the same “surge” as other countries in Europe where they had been lifted. “They maintained sanitary passes and even the vaccine pass, as well as masks in enclosed areas,” he said. “In Italy, they’ve even made the FFP2 [N95]mask compulsory in shops!” He concluded that there was no correlation between restrictions and avoiding a surge of infections.
It was, of course, the first time that Véran said anything of the kind. And it is to be expected that he will have forgotten this sudden (and opportunistic) burst of common sense if Macron is reelected and the government chooses to clamp down on French freedoms once again.
But all is not lost. Yes, a 2.5 hour televised debate between Macron and Marine Le Pen on Wednesday evening did not give her a clear advantage over her adversary, and fundamental issues such as family, freedom, educational liberty, and getting rid of the socialist straitjacket under which tax-ridden France has been groaning for years were mostly absent. But Macron appeared feverish, impolitely slumped in his chair, and repeatedly interrupted Marine, who remained calm and polite throughout. Her main themes, the rise of insecurity and uncontrolled immigration, are still capable of determining the choice of many voters, despite the hostility of the mainstream press.
For many, this vote will be a last chance for France and for freedom.
