Macron eyes up a new career

How is France dealing with its latest Covid wave? Not particularly well, if you listen to the director of epidemiological research at the Pasteur Institute in Paris. Earlier this week Arnaud Fontanet, who sits on the French version of Sage, said that Macron’s approach risks repeating the ‘tragedy of the English’ as the Kent variant spreads across the country. 

So how are those in the Élysée reacting? Macron shut all bars, restaurants and gyms back in October — but scientists like Fontanet want him to consider new restrictions. After all, France has been painfully slow at rolling out the vaccine, managing just 3.3 citizens per 100 compared to the UK’s one in five. 

Seemingly forgetting their country’s woeful vaccine response, French ministers are instead congratulating their En Marche! leader. ‘Macron is so interested in Covid that he can challenge the scientists,’ gushes one politician to France Inter, ‘he will end up an epidemiologist’. 

Given the polls put Le Pen ahead of Macron at next year’s presidential election, Mr S thinks it’s probably a good idea that Macron is looking at other career options…