France: From Centralization to Defiance?
Résumé
The French response to the pandemic took place within a pre-existing institutional framework, highly centralized and conducted directly by the President of the Republic. This degree of centralization, sometimes personalized by the President himself, fuelled in turn a specific kind of politicization, featuring opposing favourable and critical views on the role of the President, rather than clear partisan options. Even though most French people have globally adhered to the measures taken, through their behaviour and their opinions, many debates and public controversies arose in this politicized landscape. This can be observed at different moments of the pandemic, the management of which mobilized, like in most countries, a comprehensive set of public instruments, both sanitary and economic.