2023-08-09 18:43:41
TRIBUNE/OPINION – Does Politics take its holidays in August? It all depends on what you put in “Policy”. We have a president who actually went on vacation to Fort de Brégançon in the Var; a presidential habit inaugurated by De Gaulle in 1968, and shunned by the two socialist presidents, F. Mitterrand and F. Hollande. This habit of place and date makes it a tradition and above all a cost.
Cost of living (national)
Who pays for the holidays of the Presidents of the Republic? Who pays those of Macron and his family? A question that torments all the more, as fewer and fewer French people go on vacation, even fewer in August, and for whom the future announced to them is that of restrictions on spending, travel, even basic things like the health and food. This in the name of national responsibility it seems…
Why should we pay for the vacations of those who have ample means like Macron, by those who restrict themselves, or even cannot go on vacation? Who would make this obscenity of a head of state in charge of the population, which however is impoverished and can no longer take care of itself?
However, assures us the Court of Auditors (1), Macron costs only 60,000 euros per swim for his safety, to which are added operating costs which would have fallen (400,000 euros), while the personal costs would be partly paid by the couple. What should reassure the French? Or cringe those who heard Macron declare the day after the ministerial reshuffle of July 20, 2023: “We must somehow prepare the country for a demanding framework and order in terms of public finances” (2). Surely it was a question of public finances for the start of the school year, not including his holidays?
The other face of Paris in August
It is also true that holidays in August are more expensive. Who is surprised by this habit of many French people to want to continue leaving during this same period. A form of mass migration that concentrates on this restricted part of the school holidays. Because it would be warmer, the bathing water would be more pleasant, the sunshine would be longer. These arguments seem to outweigh the much higher prices, the overcrowding that puts summer visitors elbow to elbow on the beaches.
And then as everyone leaves, makes that the businesses also close and oblige those who work there to leave in August. Paris in August changes its face; it’s another rhythm, less noise, more space. This is the best time to take advantage of it. This is at least my argument to this nagging question that is addressed to everyone in these times: “Where are you going this year?”. A habit that continues. Who reassures? It is still normal in 2023 to go on vacation, even to be able to fly. But until when ?
Of course, we can make fun of the sheepish behavior of the French who find themselves in large numbers in the same place, after having followed each other in traffic jams despite the recommendations of Bison Futé, in stations, in airports, then on the same beaches, in the same restaurants…
Sheep the French? Sheep humans? Remember that it is men who have created rams and sheep, those sheep that are accused of being docile or even conformist. That in reality without its domestication in a herd, this animal is not originally so; he would even have individualistic, singular behaviors, even non-followers. It would therefore be the organizations/systems that would favor gregarious functioning. A chief, and all flock behind? However, this is not how the world advances and progresses.
An increasingly dematerialized world
Isn’t this attachment to going on vacation, especially in August, rather wanting to do as before, “this world before”, before 2020 in particular? This desire to find it quickly, which has led too many French people to follow, to make compromises, to believe in the temporary constraints, to restrict themselves to find this before, this promise; on condition of submitting to the chief, on condition of forgetting oneself.
When many begin to sense that this so-promised world before is not planned, never was, and this from the start. That the French are inexorably forced into an increasingly dematerialized world, over which they have no control.
In August, Politics certainly does not stop, even if it is less visible. Which moves what could have created an uproar to another date. Initially announced on April 1, and now since August 1, 2023, the receipt is no longer mandatory; for the moment one obtains it by asking for it.
Remember that this is the same process that was used for checkout bags, before making them chargeable… In order to “save the planet”, we are told to cut short any questioning.
Will this be one change too many, which makes those who thought they were finding their mark, finding their way back, aware that this era is over? That what is said is not what is, but that it is necessary to act as if. To follow is to lose oneself. When the information transmitted too often looks like a bet on the amnesia of the population.
The example of the weather is striking in this regard. What was the weather like last summer? Last winter ? 10 years ago, 30 years ago… Who remembers? Who can compare using his memory? And will it even be reliable? Officially this summer, it’s the “heat wave” which is accompanied by a dryness, because of the “global warming”, the very one that is said to be fighting by removing receipts! But the weather does not care much about the beliefs of some, even “experts”, whose motivations remain obscure to any sensible person. In reality, the few days of heat in a completely normal summer gave way to a cool and very rainy summer for the season.
Wet drought
However, some did not disassemble, such as Release (3) which title: “Despite the freshness ahead, the drought continues to spread”to nevertheless warn against what can be qualified as “asymptomatic dryness”; as we had asymptomatic Covid patients? “Corsica thus went through its second longest heat wave since 1947 from July 8 to 24. The island experienced ‘one of its hottest Julys’, along with July 2022 and 2015, with an average temperature of 24 .9 degrees.”
Yes, you read that right: 24.9 degrees, translated by the newspaper as extreme heat. When the terms to terrify are scattered throughout: abnormally hot / after a particularly hot month of June / caused suffocation / which was infernal… After the “warming up”, it is “the boiling” that is on the way! ? And yet that is not what happened. What we are told: “But the drop in temperatures in France is a sham.”
What investigation did this newspaper do? What are its sources? A clue with what is written at the end of the article: “Updated on August 1 with the declaration of Christophe Béchu”. Thus everything would be based on the declarations of a minister, who becomes for Release, an expert on meteorological issues in particular. And this, without blinking! Such a pirouette that makes you wonder why the weather forecast is not censored. Why bother with real numbers again? Like the receipts, in the long term isn’t it a question of removing everything that can give hold, make people think, raise doubts?
On the other hand, polls will never be deleted. Don’t we make them say what we want? If declaring that Jean-Jacques Goldman is the favorite personality of the French cannot have an impact on the present and future life of the French, the same cannot be said when it comes to a politician.
Would it seem that Édouard Philippe would also be a favorite personality of the French this year; this coinciding with the words of Emmanuel Macron on July 25, 2023 from New Caledonia, following a question concerning Édouard Philippe in 2027 (4) :
“I want those who have been with me for these six years, who have made the reforms alongside me, to be able to take over. (…) He did it well. He is a friend.”
Let this be one word among others that Macron is accustomed to; let us remember for example this idea also of a third mandate exercised by himself… No matter, it is fundamental here to get out of amnesia. And of what happened with Édouard Philippe concerning the health management of the Covid as head of government, when as I specify in this article from 2021 (5)he had “the joysticks”. It was Édouard Philippe who decided to confine the French, to shut down economic activity, to ban general practitioners from treating, to prevent any follow-up care for patients unrelated to Covid. …; in summary everything that happened regarding the Covid between November 2019 and July 2020, which was under his responsibility.
These promises to find the world before on the condition of forgetting, of denying one’s power over one’s life, of accepting the dematerialization of what surrounds us, of believing everything that is said rather than seeing for oneself, are which will cause all reality, all beauty, all awareness of what is, of what allows us to act, to create, to move away, even to extinguish. To live. It would be finally to accept oneself to be dematerialized, to accept to disappear. Neither the life before nor the life after, nothing can justify this absence from one’s own life, to direct it for oneself and for everyone.
Give Aphorisms and othersLaurence Waki (on 8/8/2023)
*Laurence Waki is a writer and philosopher. Find his texts on his site internet.
Notes :
(1) Article of Capital on the cost of the presidential vacation – Emmanuel Macron: how much does the president’s vacation cost at Fort Brégançon?
(2) Article the Tribune on public finances – Emmanuel Macron: “We must prepare the country for a demanding framework in terms of public finances”
(3) Article Release on drought – Despite the coming freshness, the drought continues to spread
(4) Article France-Info on Édouard Philippe in 2027 – In New Caledonia, Emmanuel Macron evokes Edouard Philippe among those who could “take over” in 2027
(5) Read Laurence Waki’s articles on Edouard Philippe, June 2018 – Avril 2020 – July 2021
#Submitting #Policy #takes #vacation