Un rare exercise in politics. The current government spokesperson – and above all former Minister of Health – Olivier Véran was questioned by our colleagues from the Parisian, this Wednesday, September 7. And this, on the occasion of the release, Thursday, of his book Beyond the waves published by Robert Laffont. In this interview, the member of the government explains that he came close to mental exhaustion, at the end of the first epidemic wave, in the spring of 2020.
“I touched the burn-out, I think. One morning, towards the end of the first wave, between a defense council and a council of ministers, in the Elysée park. I had vertigo, deep nausea, throbbing legs. At the time, I slept three hours a night, I skipped a lot of meals, the stress was permanent. Then I looked at the trees, I blew and it started again on the spot, ”he says. Do not see in this book a way for the executive to justify the decisions that may have been taken during the health crisis. Olivier Véran explaining that he wants to “show transparency”
The most striking example: that of masks. “The truth is that, on the masks, we were wrong, neither more nor less. We, the World Health Organization, the international health authorities. In good faith, of course, but we were wrong, ”assures the former Minister of Health. Indeed, in the spring of 2020, the executive had hammered home that the use of masks was unnecessary. And this, while France no longer had a sufficient stock to equip the entire population, in a context of global rupture.
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Didier Raoult, “a MacGyver disguised as a shaman”
At the same time, Olivier Véran confides that he experienced a form of “disbelief” at the start of the health crisis. In February 2020, while Italy was overwhelmed by Covid-19, France still thought it could pass between the drops, without having to bring its economy to its knees. “When I see what is happening there, I understand that a virus will change the face of the world. For me, it was the moment of changeover ”, he explains, in reference to the decision of Rome to close the schools.
Retired from his scientific activities, Professor Didier Raoult is not spared either, even though he is pinned in a new report from an administrative investigation. “During this crisis, we had a MacGyver disguised as a shaman, crowned with a great career and who said he had found the miracle cure”, denounces Olivier Véran, in the columns of the Parisian. He admits to having been “challenged” by the power of the support of elected politicians and part of the population for the thesis of chloroquine, praised by the Marseille professor.
READ ALSOEXCLUSIVE. Covid: Didier Raoult and Jean-François Delfraissy settle their accounts
Finally, Olivier Véran evokes the legal proceedings which target part of the executive, on its management of the crisis. If he does not question the legal action, he claims to have experienced the search which affected his home as a “rape of [son] intimacy”.