Jonathan Miller Jonathan Miller

Macron’s potty-mouthed outburst is deliberate – and calculated

Can anyone imagine General De Gaulle speaking like this?

LUDOVIC MARIN/AFP via Getty Images

President Emmanuel Macron’s declaration that he intends to ‘emmerder’ – which loosely translates, excuse my English, as ‘piss off’ – the non-vaccinated has been widely reported this morning as the mother of all political gaffes. 

Macron declared, in an interview with Le Parisien, France’s best-selling newspaper: 

In a democracy, the worst enemy is lies and stupidity. We put pressure on the non-vaccinated by limiting their access to social activities as much as possible. In fact, almost all people, over 90 per cent, have signed up. It is a very small minority that is resistant. How do we reduce this minority? We reduce them, I’m sorry to say, by annoying them even more.The non-vaccinated, I really want to piss them off. And so, we are going to continue to do it, until the end. It is the immense moral fault of the antivaxxers: they undermine what is the solidity of a nation. When my freedom threatens that of others, I become irresponsible.

Jonathan Miller
Written by
Jonathan Miller

Jonathan Miller, who lives near Montpellier, is the author of ‘France, a Nation on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown’ (Gibson Square). His Twitter handle is: @lefoudubaron

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