Back to the fifth wave of the Covid-19 epidemic, which is now hitting France. And it brings with it, as always, a rhetorical dilemma for the government: how to announce the wave?
It is indeed a dilemma that the government has already faced this summer. On the one hand, it is necessary to alert the population with sufficient force, in order to encourage the inhabitants to be vaccinated: this was already the case in July for the first vaccination campaign, it still is today for the recall campaign. But it is also necessary to know how to remain reassuring, under penalty of flanking the accusations of mismanagement of the epidemic.
How then to strike a balance between these two requirements? This is what Gabriel Attal, the government spokesman, has set out to do. This is what he said last Wednesday at the end of the Council of Ministers: “The fifth wave is here, in our country. Everywhere the epidemic is accelerating and the virus is gaining ground. This wave is happening, it’s true, but we have good reason to believe that it will not take everything in its path . “ We have statements here that contain no hyperbole, no element of emphasis. We are still in a purely factual register, and, therefore, not sufficiently armed to provoke a real awareness in the population.But what interests me is above all this little thing that we do not necessarily see happening: “We have good reason to believe that it will not take everything in its path.” Formally, this is good news, and moreover, Gabriel Attal immediately goes on to praise the vaccination coverage of France. But there is a rule in rhetoric: words produce their effects whatever the context in which they are placed (principle of proference). So when Gabriel Attal says “the wave will not take everything in its path”, what our brain hears is “take everything in its path”.
In addition, here, Gabriel Attal gives again to the expression “epidemic wave” its metaphorical character. It is true that, in 18 months, the expression has had time to fossilize: it no longer gives rise to particular representations. But speaking of a wave that “sweeps away everything in its path”, we suddenly find the first image of a tsunami that is about to fall on us. And this image, of course, is in itself very scary. This is how, in a single expression, Gabriel Attal manages both to praise the good management of the government, and to prepare the population for bad news.
And this bad news did not drag on. This is what the same Gabriel Attal said, from Sunday on Europe 1: “What we see is that this fifth wave, it starts in a dazzling way.” “Dazzling” : the word is out. This time we have a clearly hyperbolic register, with the expression of a high threat aimed at creating an electroshock. And what’s interesting is that this two-step communication scheme has already been used this summer, around the time of the third wave. Remember Gabriel Attal’s statement on July 7, at the very beginning of the epidemic recovery: “The epidemic is once again gaining ground in our country. This situation is linked, in France as in the rest of the world, to the Delta variant, which is much more aggressive than the previous variants. The risk of a rapid fourth wave is the.” Here too, we have elements of speech which are intended to be descriptive, factual. But here’s what the government spokesperson said 12 days later: “We are seeing a faster wave, a steeper slope, than all the previous ones. We must do everything possible now so that this wave is not, too, more devastating. We start from the bottom but this wave can go up very quickly. and it can go up very high. An increase of this type, I say it, so strong, so sudden, we had never known since the beginning of the epidemic in our country. ” We find here the use of superlatives, which aim to create an electric shock in the population.
So here is the government’s communication plan: first, a first speech, as neutral as possible, to prepare public opinion. Then, a second, much more emotional, to encourage vaccination. It remains, of course, to judge the adequacy of this communication with the reality of the situation. Is it appropriate? Too alarmist? Or on the contrary, too timid? This is up to each and every one to judge.