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A minister fleeing a tsunami

Bagged nurses

Professor vs president

On Tuesday, the French Health Ministry officially prohibited the utilization of treatment based on chloroquine recommended by Raoult.

There was no state of collective panic in South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan and Vietnam

What's going on in the fifth largest economy in the world arguably points to a major collusion scandal in which the French government is helping Big Pharma to profit from the expansion of Covid-19. Informed French citizens are absolutely furious about it.Respected Professor Christian Perronne talked about the theft live in one of France's 24/7 info channels: "The central pharmacy for the hospitals announced today that they were facing a total rupture of stocks, that they were pillaged."With input from another, anonymous source, it's now possible to establish a timeline that puts in much-needed perspective the recent actions of the French government.Let's start with Yves Levy, who was the head of INSERM - the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research - from 2014 to 2018, when he was appointed as extraordinary state councilor for the Macron administration. Only 12 people in France have reached this status.Levy is married to Agnes Buzy, who until recently was minister of health under Macron. Buzy was essentially presented with an "offer you can't refuse" by Macron's party to leave the ministry - in the middle of the coronavirus crisis - and run for Mayor of Paris, where she was mercilessly trounced in the first round on March 16.Levy has a vicious running feud with Professor Didier Raoult - prolific and often-cited Marseille-based specialist in communicable diseases. Levy withheld the INSERM label from the world-renowned IHU (Hospital-University Institute) research center directed by Raoult.In practice, in October 2019, Levy revoked the status of "foundation" of the different IHUs so he could take over their research.Here's the timeline:On January 13, Agnes Buzyn, still France's Health Minister, classifies chloroquine as a "poisonous substance," from now on only available by prescription.On March 16, the Macron government orders a partial lockdown. There's not a peep about chloroquine. Police initially are not required to wear masks; most have been stolen anyway, and there are not enough masks even for health workers . In 2011 France had nearly 1.5 billion masks: 800 million surgical masks and 600 million masks for health professionals generally.But then, over the years, the strategic stocks were not renewed, to please the EU and to apply the Maastricht criteria , which limited membership in the Growth and Stability Pact to countries whose budget deficits did not exceed 3% of GDP. One of those in charge at the time was Jerome Salomon, now a scientific counselor to the Macron government.On March 17, Agnes Buzyn says she has learned the spread of Covid-19 will be a major tsunami , for which the French health system has no solution. She also says it had been her understanding that the Paris mayoral election "would not take place" and that it was, ultimately, "a masquerade."What she does not say is that she didn't go public at the time she was running because the whole political focus by the Macron political machine was on winning the "masquerade." The first round of the election meant nothing, as Covid-19 was advancing. The second round was postponed indefinitely. She had to know about the impending healthcare disaster. But as a candidate of the Macron machine she did not go public in timely fashion.In quick succession:Thanks to a tweet by Elon Musk, President Trump says chloroquine should be available to all Americans . Sufferers of lupus and rheumatoid arthritis, who already have supply problems with the only drug that offers them relief, set social media afire with their panic.Morocco buys the stock of chloroquine from Sanofi in Casablanca.Pakistan decides to increase its production of chloroquine to be sent to China.Christian Estrosi, the mayor of Nice, having had himself treated with chloroquine, without any government input, directly calls Sanofi so they may deliver chloroquine to Nice hospitals.Because of Raoult's research, a large-scale chloroquine test finally starts in France, under the - predictable - direction of INSERM, which wants to "remake the experiments in other independent medical centers." This will take at least an extra six weeks - as the Elysee Palace's scientific council now mulls the extension of France's total lockdown to ... six weeks.If joint use of hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin proves definitely effective among the most gravely ill, quarantines may be reduced in select clusters.It appears the perpetrators of the chloroquine theft were very well informed.This chain of events, astonishing for a highly developed G-7 nation proud of its health service, is part of a long, painful process embedded in neoliberal dogma. EU-driven austerity mixed with the profit motive resulted in a very lax attitude towards the health system.They did not make life easy for Professor Raoult - he received death threats and was intimidated by 'journalists.'This ties in with anguished reports by French citizens of nurses now having to use trash bags due to the lack of proper medical gear.Bugault reconfirms the health situation in France "is very serious and will become even worse due to these political decisions - absence of masks, political refusal to massively test people, refusal of free access to chloroquine - in a context of supreme distress at the hospitals. This will last and destitution will be the norm."In an explosive development on Tuesday, Raoult said he's not participating in Macron's scientific council anymore, even though he's not quitting it altogether.That's exactly what is expected from the IHU in Marseille, where hundreds of residents continue to queue up for testing.He's not advocating chloroquine for everyone. It's exactly what the Chinese did, along with their use of Interferon.In fact the treatment is only allowed for terminal Covid-19 patients, with no other possibility of healing. This cannot but expose the Macron government to more accusations of at least inefficiency - added to the absence of masks, tests, contact tracing and ventilators.Raoult was unavailable for comment on Western news media articles citing Chinese test results that would suggest he is wrong about the efficacy of chloroquine in dealing with mild cases of Covid-19.Staffers pointed instead to his comments in the IHU bulletin. ThereBetween the moment when we have the first results and an accepted international publication, there is no credible alternative among people who are the most knowledgeable in the world. They took this measure in the interest of public health."Crucially: if he had coronavirus, Raoult says he would take chloroquine.That ties in with the controversial analysis by crack philosopher Giorgio Agamben in a column published a month ago , where he was already arguing that Covid-19 clearly shows that the state of exception - similar to a state of emergency but with differences important to philosophers - has become fully normalized in the West.Agamben was speaking not as a doctor or a virologist but as a master thinker, following in the steps of Foucault, Walter Benjamin and Hannah Arendt.- to mention four Asian examples outside of China.There hasn't yet appeared the smoking gun that proves the Macron system not only is incompetent to deal with Covid-19 but also is dragging the process so Big Pharma can come up with a miracle vaccine, fast. But the pattern to discourage chloroquine is more than laid out above - in parallel to the demonization of Raoult.