Emmanuel Macron Envies America By Cameron Hilditch
Three conclusions from France’s vaccine failures.
O f all the peoples of the Earth, perhaps only Americans and Russians spend more time thinking about the soul of their nation than the French do. There’s a preoccupation with the national character in France — a kind of incessant introspection, obsessed with diagnosing the metaphysical maladies of the country — that’s especially pronounced. General de Gaulle summed up the attitude of the French to their motherland when he said that “France cannot be France without greatness.” When this greatness is manifestly absent, a crisis of confidence habitually flares up in the French body politic.
The global race to vaccinate the public against COVID-19 has triggered just such a crisis. As I detailed this past week, the European Union’s handling of vaccine procurement and distribution has been criminally bad. The Europeans are desperately in need of new vaccine patents after the EU bungled its contract with AstraZeneca.
France’s failure to develop its own vaccine has bruised the characteristic national pride of her elites. The country has an illustrious history of vaccination, stretching back to the great Louis Pasteur, who invented vaccines for rabies and anthrax. The storied Pasteur Institute was later at the cutting edge of treatment for HIV.
However, the Pasteur Institute abandoned its main COVID-19 vaccine project last week, and another French pharmaceutical company, Sanofi, also threw its hands up in defeat. This has triggered the typical soul-searching among French politicians.
The center-right Les Républicains parliamentary group tweeted:
In a race against the clock, the Pasteur Institute throws in the towel on its main vaccine project, while Sanofi announces a delay until the end of the year, because of a lack of efficiency, after so many grand announcements. This scientific decline is a slap in the face.
Meanwhile, in an interview with a French radio station, François Bayrou, a prominent ally of President Emmanuel Macron, described France’s dearth of vaccine innovation as “a sign of the decline of the country and this decline is unacceptable.” Interestingly, the embarrassment that French statesmen have shown on their country’s behalf in recent days has often expressed itself in the form of envy for American innovation and dynamism. Bayrou, for instance, lamented the “brain drain” of France’s best and brightest to the United States as a national humiliation. He was referring in this instance to Stéphane Bancel, the Frenchman in charge of the American biotech firm Moderna, whose vaccine is already being administered widely in both Europe and the U.S. “It is not acceptable that our best researchers, the most brilliant of our researchers, are sucked up by the American system,” Bayrou concluded.No one, however, has voiced more frustration with European shortcomings or shown more unabashed envy for American innovation than the French president himself. During a meeting with a group of reporters last Friday, Macron said that he was “very admiring” of the “extremely innovative model” the Trump administration had put in place in the form of “Operation Warp Speed,” and expressed frustration that “Europe had a slower strategy.”
Being a Frenchman however, he could not let his analysis rest at the level of sheer technical achievement. He also mused upon the virtues of the American spirit. “I also think it’s a question of state of mind,” he told reporters. “How do we do good science as quickly as possible? The Americans did this very well, much better than us.” Macron put this down to the “less risk-averse” American way of life, which has allowed the United States to shorten clinical trials and fast-track the vaccine-authorization process. “What’s great,” Macron said, “is that we can benefit from what the Americans did, when they compressed the phase two and three of clinical trials, they allowed all of humanity to progress. It’s great.”
Three conclusions should be drawn from France’s failures and from the subsequent reflections of her statesmen upon them.
Firstly, it would be insane for the United States to pursue a policy of immigration restrictionism. It may be a great source of sorrow for Mr. Bayrou that France’s “best researchers, the most brilliant of our researchers, are sucked up by the American system,” but it is fantastic for America. The best and brightest of planet Earth have been pressing their faces up against the windows of American life for centuries, yearning to be let in through the front door. Turning them away in a fit of nativist pique to appease the restrictionist sentiments of some voters would be a supreme act of national self-harm. Indeed, the work of Stéphane Bancel is case-in-point of what makes America great.
Secondly, European statesmen, especially Macron, ought to be careful about their pursuit of “strategic autonomy” — the burgeoning desire among European elites to further centralize European power through the institutions of the EU. The stated purpose of this centralization is to make Europe less dependent on the United States in areas such as health care and industry, and, more importantly, to eventually allow the EU to project military power in its own interests, independent of the United States. Macron reportedly underscored these themes in a recent call with President Biden.
The French president should not labor under the illusion that Europeans will always be able “to benefit from what the Americans did” while pursuing strategic outcomes that do not align with the interests of the United States. The coronavirus pandemic has shown that when Europe is up the proverbial creek without a paddle, it still likes having Uncle Sam on speed dial as a last resort. Throwing the cell phone overboard to pursue “strategic autonomy” might not work out so well the next time the Old World hits rough waters.
Lastly, the failure of the French vaccine drive and Macron’s lament should remind us that rumors of America’s death, to amend a phrase of Mark Twain’s, have been greatly exaggerated. Prophecies of American decline are made, more often than not, by Americans themselves who are too close to the United States to see it against the backdrop of the wider world. But the view of America from across the Atlantic is quite different. It’s hard to see a city shining on a hill from within its own walls. It’s better seen from a far-off ridge, from which its shimmering light is thrown into relief by the darkness surrounding it: darkness that Macron, France, and all of Europe are well acquainted with.
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