Masks and confinement a debate that has lasted for a century.

In 1918, deputies debated the measures taken by the government to stem the epidemic of "Spanish" influenza.

"The most serious health crisis that France has known in a century." Emmanuel Macron’s words on Thursday, March 12, gave the coronavirus pandemic historic proportions, already placing it with the ill-named “Spanish flu” (the first case had been recorded in Kansas).

At the twilight of the First World War, the flu would kill at least 50 million people worldwide, 240,000 in France. From a medical point of view, the comparison between this pandemic and the one we are dealing with today seems limited. It is more relevant from a political point of view, as demonstrated by an administrator of the National Assembly by posting on Twitter the session report of October 25, 1918, of what was then called the Chamber of Deputies. The issues seem very current.

A few days before the armistice, France is experiencing a peak in mortality due to these famous flu. During the sitting, several deputies questioned the government on the actions to be taken to stem this crisis. Some elected officials point to the gaps. “There is a medication crisis. We lack the simplest products. […] However, there were large stocks built up; if the production of certain products has been stopped, if others from Germany no longer exist, has there not been, for some, speculation and grabbing? " wonders deputy Fernand Merlin. The shortage of masks and hydro alcoholic gel is therefore not new.

"Germs never have a business card"

A little earlier, the same member underlined the containment measures implemented in Lyon with the closure of theaters and "cinematographers" and was surprised that such measures were not taken in other cities. It is imitated a few moments later by the deputy Poirier de Narçay, who also requests the closing of the places of leisures, these places of "useless meetings".

Shortly after the arrests of the deputies, the Under-Secretary of State for the Interior, Albert Favre, takes the floor and announces an enhanced border control, triggering this remark by the deputy Edouard Barthe: "Microbes never have a card to visit. " Favre adds measures, such as the requisitioning of certain drugs, and recalls recommendations such as the isolation of the sick or the wearing of masks, by health professionals, as "Americans do in their flu hospitals".


Marx was right: when history repeats itself for the first time, it is a tragedy.