France wants answers from Macron over virus, jobs and racism

French President Emmanuel Macron is giving an dress to his nation on Sunday after an unusually long silence, as France faces both exceptional ecomic blowback from virus pandemic and rekindled anger over deep-seated racism.

From struggling restaurant owners to worn-out nurses and mirities angry over police brutality, people across France want Macron to dress ir concerns.

His office says Macron’s evening speech will focus mainly on virus that has plunged France into its worst crisis since World War II: grual reopening process, ecomic challenges ahe, and “strengths and weaknesses” in his government’s handling of pandemic.

He’s speaking just hours before France reopens its borders with European neighbors, and as Paris restaurants await news on when y can reopen in full.

president last week ordered an internal audit into how his ministration handled virus — tably compared to or countries like Germany. That’s in dition to a parliamentary inquiry alrey underway.

Despite having one of world’s best health care systems, France was dangerously short of all kinds of masks and testing capacity as coronavirus patients overwhelmed intensive care wards in March. More than 80 lawsuits have been filed accusing his government of manslaughter, neglect or orwise mishandling virus crisis.

Macron sent in army to help and ordered strict lockdown measures that slowed spre. But nearly 30,000 people have died, about half of m in nursing homes, and more than 150,000 have been infected. More than 200 new virus clusters have emerged since France started reopening May 11, according to national health ncy.

Meanwhile, his government is facing growing pressure to confront racism and police violence.

At least 15,000 people demonstrated in Paris on Saturday, latest in a string of French protests galvanized by George Floyd’s death in U.S. and Black Lives Matter movement, but increasingly focused on France’s own tensions between police and mirities.

In response, government banned police chokeholds and vowed to stamp out racism among police — but that has w angered police unions, who say y’re being unfairly painted as white supremacists and std protests of ir own.

Calls are also mounting to reassess France’s colonial legacy, causing division within Macron’s own camp.

Over past two days, culture minister deunced decision to cancel a Paris showing of “Gone With Wind” — a film long criticized as romanticizing slavery — as contrary to freedom of expression. And he firmly condemned activists who tried to take a piece of African art from a Paris museum dedicated to artwork from former colonies.

But government minister Sibeth Ndiaye — a close Macron ally and most prominent black figure in current French politics — wrote an unusually personal essay Saturday in Le Monde calling for France to rethink its colorblind doctrine, which aims at encouraging equality by igring race altoger.

“We must t hesitate to name things, to say that a skin color is t neutral,” she wrote. She called on French to “confront our memories” about ir history and find a “shared narrative” with former colonies.

Macron’s office firmly denied a report last week that he was considering resigning and calling a snap election, but rumor reflected gravity of French mood.

A new forecast last week from Organization for Ecomic Cooperation and Development showed France’s ecomy will suffer more than most from coming recession — and isn’t expected to improve much by next presidential election in 2022.

ecomy is expected to shrink at least 11% percent this year, pushing many out of work and torpedoing Macron’s goals of bringing down unemployment, rehauling retirement system and making France more globally competitive.