The key measure for me is the number of deaths, not cases (which is at least in part obviously a function of the number of tests).
Of course 200+ deaths a day is terrible - but winter deaths from flu anyway would be - what, @anon88169868 ? - over 100 a day? And although the French vaccination roll-out has been slower - but I would add more careful - than a few other countries, it is better than most across the world - and has already reached the most vulnerable.
I myself criticise Macron for quite a lot of things, but honestly, a balanced assessment of his performance on covid would mark him avaerage-to-good.
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Exactly!
Unless people make pretty strenuous efforts, they only really know 2 things:
- what they experience in their own lives - which is bound to be a tiny fraction of what is really going on - it’s ‘anecdotal’ as scientists say; and
- what the media tell them.
Those receiving mainly UK media - and moreso those in the UK - are bound to have views shaped by this situation. How could they otherwise?
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Really ,so because some people die from flu in a normal year anyway it doesn’t matter that more are dying from covid?
You’re playing politicians’ games Edward - as I said
Listening to a French viewpoint discussion between a group of people from our town and the mayor in our local shop yesterday was fun, the words pathetic, amateurish to woeful (not sure if malheureux is woeful or not) they did not seem to think Macron’s response was measured.
I have friends in France and believe me they are not happy.
I’m flabbergasted about this “normal” life that seems to be going on in France. In the UK people are going about their daily business but it’s far from normal. It seems to me that because you have a few more businesses open than we do that life is “nearly normal”. I can go out to the supermarket, the takeaway, the DIY shop, the garden centre but life is not normal, and I think you are being disingenuous if you claim that life is “nearly normal” in France.
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I don’t think many of the posters on here are UK residents.
Isn’t that just normal chit chat, criticising, regardless of the actual truth, is a national sport 
Everyone moans but nobody wants to be vaccinated (we haven’t got enough anyway) and nobody wants to be confined either. Oh and most of the comment I hear/am on the receiving end of is moaning about the couvre-feu and having to wear a mask (when they can be bothered!) and why we can only have 2 customers at a time in the shop!
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And actually wider surveys show Macron’s popularity increasing from a low point late 2018 to the present.
I tend to see Macron’s problem as built in to his situation. He presented himself and his new party as the solution to the public’s dissatisfaction with existing political choices - but it was all only superficially ‘new’ - Macron didn’t really have anything substantially different to offer. So it was always absolutely inevitable that disillusion would set in.
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and he wants to change what nobody else has been able to change, even though everybody knows things have to change, les retraites… !
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That’s pretty normal for France on any subject! The relationship between the French population and the Government can’t be directly compared to the UK.
“How different, how very different, from the home life of our own dear Queen”
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The changes are required and he was mandated to change things but the mistake he made was to try to change things too quickly, not only retraites the rest. The proof is the gilet jaunes and strikes and demos when the COVID came to his rescue.
The French detest change so they need to be dealt with on a softly softly basis, ease them in slowly.
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But you only have 5 years to do so…so little time for softly softly.
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I have been coming/living to France of and on for 40 years so I know a bit about how French life works that’s why I choose to live here and around here people are in general from what I hear from folks are not very happy with Macron and the way the covid/vaccination cituation has been dealt with.
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Francois Mitterrand proved you wrong Jane. It can be done if you have the correct approach. Mitterand transformed France and he was given 14 years to do it.
It really is head in sand when it comes to retirement and pensions.
Everyone knows it needs to be done because the demographics have changed so markedly, but cannot accept it when it comes to themselves.
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@Griffin36 Let us not get into a contest about how long we have been knocking about France (which I would win 
) and how many political conversations we have had with French friends … all I know is that there is a cultural tendency to overstate negative opinions.
Our village voted heavily for FN last time round, but no where near as heavily as all the debate beforehand would have you believe.
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Which was that town in southern France than had voted communist for years, then recently switched right over to the FN?
The previous mayor, I remember - who had been in office for years, and had retired not lost the votes, and was black - said the people were neither racist nor fascist - they were just hurting, and wanted to send a message to Paris.
I wasn’t, you are 
, I was pointing out that I am not exactly naive about the difference between bellyaching and real annoyances when talking and listening to the French people and wasn’t looking at it from a British comparison perspective.
Means unfortunate, really, not as strong as woeful.
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