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Coronavirus has sent Europe into shock. But we have the tools to recover | Natalie Nougayrède
Governments are scrambling to reimpose old borders but we, European citizens, should launch our own solidarity network
Coronavirus – latest updatesEurope has become the global centre of the coronavirus pandemic, according to the World Health Organization. In France, where I am writing from, President Macron has put the country in a “health war” lockdown. Cafes, restaurants, theatres, public parks are closed and all non-essential activities have stopped. In living memory there’s never been anything like this: under Nazi occupation, as we know, Paris culture and nightlife kept functioning rather well. Covid-19 is upon us now, and many of our continent’s large cities feel like they’re fast sliding into one of those dystopian movie scripts with empty streets, face masks, surgical gloves and self-isolation the new normal.
With hospital emergency units bracing themselves for much worse yet to come, it feels almost irrelevant to dwell on what this moment says about our place in the world as Europeans, or which feelings we are able to muster – or not – for one another and for others overseas. Postwar Europe’s institutional set-up was meant to epitomise international cooperation and solidarity, and to set a form of global example in the process. Will any of that survive now as countries start to wall themselves in? And what can we citizens do about it?
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