The Covid 19 inflation topic is here: Peak, high plateau, defense council ... Is inflation the new Covid-19 in the eyes of the government?
The same lexical field, the same defense advice, the same dramatization ... The government sometimes seems to replay the coronavirus in an economic version.
"The peak is expected", "we are on a high plateau", Olivier Véran who speaks 17 times in three days, a Defense Council this Friday, the end of the world before, massive public aid and a topic that keeps coming back in the mouth of the executive and spinning in the heads of the French ... Doesn't that remind you of anything? The current treatment of inflation has Covid-19 aftertaste, even though the bulk of the health crisis dates back only a few months ago and the virus is still circulating.
The same lexical field, the same semantics, the same answers, a massive use of public aid and a circumvention of the parliamentary voice, strongly criticized by the opposition. "By using the words of the coronavirus, the government is showing itself as a crisis manager, notes Amandine Ciappa, specialist in crisis communication and political communication. A crisis that we came out of for the pandemic. It's a message: "yes, the executive is taking the matter into his own hands, and yes, there is a way out of all this" ". The choice of Olivier Véran, Minister of Health during Covid-19, as the new government spokesman is also in this direction. For Benjamin Morel, doctor of Political Science at the ENS, "Emmanuel Macron is riding on the same mechanics: a raising of flags and a feeling of national unity in the face of a major crisis. »
Covid 19 inflation
But beware of a vocabulary and attitudes that can border on excess. "Emmanuel Macron seeks to dramatize the coming crisis in order to justify a strong, centralized and united power around the leader and his person. However, an institutional reshaping, especially with the return of the defense council and the circumvention of the parliamentary route, is not really justified for an economic crisis," says Benjamin Morel.
If all prices double or we spend the winter without electricity, such a tone would seem justified. "The government is putting itself in a crisis management scenario when it has not yet taken place, or even that it will not take place. There are risks - of energy cuts, rationing, social anger - that the situation will go out of hand, and it's good to be in anticipation. But there is actually a lag in seeing the government enter into a crisis communication that does not yet exist," repeats Amandine Ciappa.
Not to mention the contradictions that this mimicry induces. Olivier Véran, however the first to use the term "peak" to describe inflation, himself had to remind Sunday on BFM that the metaphor was quickly reaching its limits. Not least because even in the event of a decrease in inflation, prices continue to rise. "The economy is not about health, and talking about one with the language of the other, we risk confusing everything," worries Marc Touati, economist.
Covid 19 inflation mentions
Using the expressions of the coronavirus also serves to take responsibility, according to the expert: "As much as the pandemic had fallen out of nowhere, the government has its share of responsibility for current inflation". Knowing that she was starting to get carried away before the war in Ukraine.
"By not curbing public spending in 2021 when we were gradually emerging from the Covid-19 crisis, and by letting the European Central Bank clear debts without interest rates, governments artificially boosted demand, partly causing inflation," denounces Marc Touati. However, talking about it with a vocabulary specific to Covid-19 gives inflation this image "of an unpredictable and natural disaster, far from the wrongs of politics", he points out.
Covid 19 inflation observations
The same observation from Benjamin Morel: "The situation could lead to deleterious debates for the executive: the state of our nuclear and energy fleet, European solidarity, the effectiveness of sanctions against Russia ... Evoking the military field makes it possible to circumvent debates and criticism by assuming the need for an unchallenged leader".
And the same answers given also have their limits. France has one of the lowest inflations in Europe thanks to several state mechanisms: tariff shield, energy check, discount on gasoline ... A "Whatever it costs" bis which does not say its name, but which only worsens the situation according to Marc Touati. And which according to him will not work as well. Firstly, because France has already blown up its debt with the virus, secondly because the European Central Bank, precisely to fight inflation, has raised its interest rates: "It will be much more expensive to repay our debt than in 2020 or 2021", worries the economist. Tercio, because aid artificially boosts consumer demand, asks that it is precisely necessary to bring down in times of inflation. "It's a flight forward, we postpone and make the problem worse," the expert points out.
Covid 19 inflation management
But not everything is modeled on the management of Covid-19 either. "Compared to the health crisis, there is a glaring lack of pedagogy. At the end of the three lockdowns, we had 60 million epidemiologists so we were full of experts, graphs and explanations," recalls Caroline Marchetti, founder of Controversy, an opinion analysis and strategy consulting agency. However, if this knowledge of health has allowed the population to accept more than restrictive measures, the lack of explanations about inflation could be felt: "Of course people will complain about the price increase if they do not understand where it comes from or they think that it is due solely to our support for Ukraine. »
Another change: the notion of war, mentioned - rightly and wrongly - during the coronavirus, is no longer in the vocabulary. The Minister of the Economy, Bruno Le Maire, backtracked after mentioning "an economic war against Russia", while on March 15, 2020, Emmanuel Macron repeated "We are at war" six times in his speech announcing the first lockdown.
Covid 19 inflation in France
A lack, according to Caroline Marchetti: "With a Churchillian speech, there was the support of the population and the idea that we would all get by together. There is a lack of accountability and involvement of the population in the management of the crisis. And then when we are at war, we no longer complain about the lack of sunflower oil, we understand the gravity of the situation".
For Benjamin Morel, on the contrary, the absence of warlike metaphors is rather a good thing: "We are not openly at war with Russia, any more than we were at war with the coronavirus. What we must fear, moreover, with these defense councils, this absence of parliamentary debate and this closed communication, is not that references to Covid-19 will become the norm, but that there will be some form of establishment of a permanent and global state of crisis. »
# Covid 19 inflation #
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