Posted on 08/21/2003 8:58:55 PM PDT by blam
Chirac goes on TV to quell heatwave anger
No apology as French cabinet meets to explain 10,000 deaths
Amelia Gentleman in Paris
Friday August 22, 2003
The Guardian (UK)
In a rare public address to the nation, President Jacques Chirac conceded yesterday that weaknesses in France's health system had contributed to thousands of heat-related deaths in recent weeks. The day after his return from a three-week holiday, Mr Chirac broke his long and much-criticised silence to express sympathy with the families of the many people who had "died alone in their homes" during the "exceptional" heatwave.
The minister for the elderly admitted that 10,000 people had "most probably" died in what, after days of denials, is being seen in France as a humanitarian catastrophe.
During a highly charged cabinet meeting, the first after the fraught holidays, Mr Chirac called on several key ministers to explain their part in the weeks of crisis that have troubled France in his absence.
In the course of the two-hour session, the interior minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, spoke about the forest fires which destroyed thousands of hectares of land in the south of the country, the environment minister reported on the record-breaking pollution levels, the beleaguered health minister, Jean-François Mattei, was forced to explain why hospitals had coped so badly with the aftermath of the heatwave, while the agriculture minister outlined the massive scale of problems facing farmers after months of drought.
Stressing that this was a time for "solidarity, contemplation and action" it was clear that Mr Chirac did not intend to put pressure on Mr Mattei to resign, despite the wave of furious demands for his departure from opposition politicians and much of the media.
The president offered no apology for the disastrous events of the past few weeks, praising instead the devotion of the medical profession and promising that more resources would be made available to the emergency services so that they were better able to respond to future crises.
"Everything will be done to correct the insufficiencies that we noted in our health system," he said in a speech on national television.
But he also stressed that the tragic consequences of the freak weather should serve as a reminder of the important social obligation France had towards the most fragile members of its population.
"Our society must become more responsive and attentive to others, to their problems, their suffering and their vulnerability," he warned. "These dramas again shed light on the solitude of many aged or handicapped citizens."
It was not clear last night whether his speech would do much to quell the anger still simmering within the health service, the opposition ranks of parliament and the general public. His focus on collective responsibility appeared to irritate those who have called on the government to face up to its own failures and stop blaming social trends, such as the practice of leaving elderly relatives behind during the holiday season.
François Hollande, leader of the Socialist party, said Mr Chirac's "belated compassion cannot exonerate the government from its responsibility".
A survey published yesterday showed that 51% of the population felt the government of Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin could have handled the crisis better.
Newspaper editorials were still demanding to know why a death toll equivalent to the population of a small French town, or more than three times the number of people killed in New York on September 11, should have occurred in a nation reputed to have one of the best health services in the world.
Much has been made of the absence of key government figures during the crisis. While the former prime minister Lionel Jospin broke off a holiday in Egypt in 1999 when France was hit by storms, Mr Chirac chose not to shorten his holiday and offered no messages of support from afar.
Mr Raffarin only returned from his Alpine retreat after the toll had edged into the thousands, and Mr Mattei's decision to give a relaxed press conference - in a short-sleeved shirt at his villa in the south of France, suggesting that everything was under control at the peak of the crisis - has provoked widespread anger.
So far the head of the health authority is the only person to have handed in his resignation, though he subsequently said he felt that he had been made a scapegoat.
Elsewhere in Europe
As France grapples with the political and public health implications of the heatwave, other European countries, although without official figures, are starting to report that they too have sustained thousands of victims as a result of record temperatures:
· Netherlands 500-1,000 deaths since June. Officials say that for every degree above normal summer temperatures there have been 25 extra deaths a week
· Portugal An estimated 1,316 deaths in the fortnight to August 12
· Spain 100 deaths, though media reports suggest the figure could be far higher, as death rates leapt by around 20% in some parts. El Pais reported that in Madrid the number of deaths this year in the month to August 15 was almost 400 higher than in the same period last year
· Germany 32 deaths confirmed, most of them elderly people. Germany has been slow to assess the overall toll because of its federal system of gathering statistics
· Italy No official figures. The health ministry says it is almost impossible to determine whether deaths are linked to high temperatures. The press made comparisons with deaths last year and estimates heat-related deaths to be at least 2,000
Hillary says that's impossible and she's the smartest woman in the world.
Excuse me?!?
How many degrees would body temperature drop with shaved pits?
Sounds almost Biblical, doesn't it?
On a serious note, French leaders have some serious explaining to do. 10,000 deaths from heat in a developed country is unthinkable.
The population of France as of July 2003 = 60,180,529
Does anyone besides me have a hard time swallowing this sh*t? A one degree temprature change can kill twenty five people. If that were the case most, if not all of the people, living in The West would be dead.
Where I live the daytime and nightime temps can swing as much as sixty degrees. I smell a rat here.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.