France’s rules on using hydroxychloroquine are to change following the Lancet’s publication of two studies indicating that it can be dangerous when used to fight Covid-19.
Health Minister Olivier Véran has ordered national health officials to review the conditions for prescribing the drug, along with others mentioned in the studies.
Suite à la publication dans @TheLancet d’une étude alertant sur l’inefficacité et les risques de certains traitements du #COVIDー19 dont l’hydroxychloroquine, j’ai saisi le @HCSP_fr pour qu’il l’analyse et me propose sous 48h une révision des règles dérogatoires de prescription.
— Olivier Véran (@olivierveran) May 23, 2020
The French rules were already quite restrictive, limiting its use to serious cases in hospitals and requiring the agreement of several doctors.
The move is a blow to the flamboyant Professor Didier Raoult but is unlikely to undermine his popularity in certain circles. In fact, it may even enhance it among the conspiracy-theory inclined.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump tweets on.
Many physicians agree with you. Also, some very good studies! @SteveFDA @US_FDA https://t.co/NDHSTqvhoa
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 24, 2020
Local councillors in the 30,000 towns and villages where a party or coalition won a clear majority in the first round of elections were finally able to take their seats yesterday, two months after the poll.
A further 5,000, including Champigny, await the second round, now set for 28 June (virus permitting) to decide on a winner.
The handover usually takes five days but has been prolonged due to lockdown and other epidemic-induced complications. Apparently, there has been tension in some areas between outgoing administrations and those who will replace them.
Among the new mayors is Gérald Darmanin, who you might think has his hands with being the country’s finance minister.
He has been elected mayor of the northern French town of Tourcoing, a post he held between 2014 and 2017.
The 37-year-old minister-mayor appears to be something of a workaholic, or at least a positionaholic.
When he took up his post in Macron’s government, he was also a deputy mayor, a regional councillor and vice-president of the metropolitan area around Lille, which includes Tourcoing. He also represented the local authorities on 28 public and private-sector bodies.
After this omnipresence was revealed by l’Obs magazine, he resigned from the 28 jobs but held onto his municipal, regional and metropolitan seats, resigning from the latter in November 2018 after further press coverage.
There has been some controversy over the various incomes he received in the past. Today Darmanin, who came to Macronism from the mainstream right UMP/Républicains, says he will donate his mayoral salary to the Society for the Protection of Animals.
Accumulation of mandates is a habit French politicians have found difficult to kick. While aspiring to the padded seats of ministerial office, they want to keep a buttock in their local bases, which are indispensable to their careers and a useful fallback if they fall victim to the whims of presidents or voters.
Clearly it is not easy to fulfil all these functions with extreme conscientiousness – Darmanin was found to be to have attended 20% of the sessions of the regional council, while being paid 100% of his allowances.
Every time there’s an election in France, there’s a lot of tut-tutting about this situation and promises to phase out the practice. Last year Prime Minister Edouard Philippe said that his ministers would have to choose between a ministry or a mairie.
Darmanin said today that he has the government’s permission to do both jobs.
Philippe himself heads a list that faces a second-round showdown in Le Havre, the town he was mayor of before becoming prime minister. He has indicated that he will not be both mayor and prime minister. Culture Minister Franck Riester, who heads a list at Coulommiers, has made a similar commitment.
France’s Covid-19 death toll total will not be available until tomorrow because of the difficulty in obtaining figures from care homes during the holiday weekend. The rest of the figures show no sign of a second wave so far, with 17,178 people in hospital, down 205 in 24 hours, with 1,665 in intensive care, down 36. 64,547 patients have been discharged from hospital, 338 of them yesterday.
