The tragic story of the Nursing Home Les Colombes in Bayonne,
Pyrenees-Atlantiques, is very revealing of the true scandal structuring our
country since a very long time, and of which nobody dares to even think
further about. For years, without anyone giving the alert, the 16 residents
of this small nursing home have been abused, with the full knowledge of all
the staff members, forced to live in despicable sanitary conditions,
ingesting expired medications, and sharing 8 meals a day, while the director
diverted the price of the others.
In this beautiful country, we talk a lot about solidarity, we pride
ourselves of our “French social model”, because we finance by our taxes and
our national social contributions what we believe to be our duty towards the
weakest.
In fact, we do not really show solidarity. We have entrusted to the State
the care of repairing the damages of life, from disease to work accident.
But our empathy, our altruism, has dulled, replaced by a good fiscal
conscience. In reality, we are not at all concerned about the fate of those
whose coverages we finance. We prefer not to see them, letting others be in
charge of this. Even if it is our loved ones.
Moreover, we do not check for ourselves that these public structures, these
people we have entrusted to spend our taxes are really effective and humane;
and we also delegate to the other people, whom we pay, the responsibility to
control the reality of our social action.
So by hiding behind specialists asked to act on our behalf, we have also
lost our ability to rebel: that elderly people can remain like this for
years with no family caring for them and without doctors, nurses, who knew
what was happening protesting, demonstrates the extreme indifference which
reigns in our country. To even denounce to the authorities the terrible
suffering of the weakest seems to be above our strength; the nurses of the
nursing home clearly said: they were afraid for their jobs.
Although many of us are empathic and are doing everything they can to take
care of others, there is not a day without an example of this French
scandal, where the indifference of each brings misery to all. Thus what
happened during the drought of the summer 2003; what is happening in so many
nursing homes today; and also, just to take only one example of this week’s
massacre in Raincy of four people by a neighbor that everyone knew was
violent but that no one wanted to report to the police, not wanting to get involved in
other people’s business.
A society that is not loyal to its most fragile members is lost; a society
which entrusts to the State not only the responsibility to protect the
weakest, but also to differentiate them, speak to them, listen to them,
understand them, is already, wether it wants it or not, a totalitarian
society. And even more, a society that has lost the capacity for indignation
is actually resigned to this totalitarianism, even if it maintains for a
time, the appearance of democracy.