Emmanuel Macron met with Professor Raoult Thursday in Marseilles.

This now puts an official end to the campaign of denigration of this scientist, a campaign originating among leftist ranks. It is not the first time that Macron has been forced to step forward to stop hysterical campaigns from his own camp.

But in the Raoult affair, it was really time, because almost all the French wondered: Why did Macron show so much indulgence for the incompetence of his ministers and so much hatred against this effective Corona researcher?

On the same day, Marine Le Pen was on Europe 1, on the same subject. She rode on the credibility and the consistency of her speeches form Day One.

The question remains: why did the progressive camp show so much hatred towards Raoult?

It is that Raoult committed two sins, it seems: first he is not in the mold of our intelligentsia; he did not come from its ranks. Then, in his personal communication, he does not respect the usual codes.

But for the government, the situation had become paradoxical and dangerous: faced with the virus, it was Professor Raoult, and not Macron, who was building a new consensus, a kind of national unity around himself.

Didier Raoult had been capitalizing on the sympathy of the French for several weeks, because he gave them hope, and because he maintained a coherent, firm, constant discourse, exactly the opposite of that of the government.

Thursday afternoon the President of the French Republic therefore landed (to the surprise of some ministers, who felt downright disgusted by this trip) at the IHU clinic in Marseilles.

He met with Professor Raoult, the “controversial” (according to the official name) promoter of chloroquine. With this spectacular gesture, Macron made a 180-degree turn, somehow having grasped

— Senator Retailleau’s formula:

“If someone is dying, what is the risk of trying something new?” “,

— and that of Raoult himself:

“The only important thing in medicine is efficiency. “

91% success rate

One of the complaints made against Raoult by the “progressives” was that his tests had so far been carried out on samples of the population that were too small.

However, the Marseille IHU which he directs has just carried out a new study, on 1,061 patients, with a success rate of 91%, according to a first count. At the peak of the epidemic, his boycott by the “progressives” became untenable.

At the same time, [Macron rival] Marine Le Pen was on Europe 1. She denounced the ad hoc approach and the government’s unpreparedness, and listed her party’s positions: containment, massive tests, closing of borders to prevent the arrival of the contaminated, “quarantined” confinement, authorization to use chloroquine, self-sufficiency in the production of masks, use of city doctors, etc.

It is easy, a posteriori , to list what should have been done, but the strong point of the president [Marine le pen] of the RN [her National Regathering party], is that she had stuck by her discourse from the start, and this despite many jibes. She was also the first and even the only one to recommend postponing the first round of the municipal elections.

To paraphrase Didier Raoult, Marine Le Pen says, in this dossier which will mark the life of the French for years, “the only important thing in politics is efficiency”. If the efficiency was not there, then a politician’s career will be eliminated.