French President Emmanuel Macron appears to struggle to breathe under his COVID19 mask. Some criticized Macron for not taking his own government’s mask mandates seriously after he was filmed removing his face-covering to cough while speaking to students.
Macron took off his mask after experiencing a mild coughing fit during a speech to a vocational college in Clermont-Ferrand. As the audience giggled nervously, he accepted a glass of water from an assistant who remained at arm’s length, explaining, “We maintain distance, but I’m choking.” The French leader then demanded a “lighter mask,” claiming he “must have absorbed something” from the cloth covering. If so, why request a “lighter mask?” French citizens were quick to deride the president’s discomfort, noting the French are required to wear masks in public with little understanding of what people go through to wear them. See President Macron’s COVID19 mask coughing fit:
Fines for not wearing a mask are 135 Euros ($154) in France. And yes, the police regularly circulate cities and villages to find and fine violators. Most shops will not let you enter their establishment without a mask, and the larger shops have security guards to enforce it. Macron suffered through a simple conversation – he could hardly breathe. And it is understandable. But what of workers, like servers in a restaurant serving for hours, construction workers in dusty areas, or postal workers in the hot summer sun?
A lower court in France ruled mask mandates must be curtailed – only to be applied during rush hours and crowded situations. However, later a higher court found that cities could indeed impose the broad orders as long as they were “coherent and easy to apply for citizens.” We suppose perhaps President Macron can also have some latitude. One wonders what a “lighter mask” means. Would it stop COVID19? Are these “lighter masks” for just for show?
It is truly revealing to see happens when elites that make rules for the masses and then have to live within those same rules. Perhaps Macron will think twice before making sweeping mandates.
