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Brian Lehrer on WNYC. In France, president Emmanuel Macron implemented one of the harshest Coronavirus lockdowns in the world. The result? France has largely contained the virus and life has gone back to something resembling normal, as normal as it can possibly be, given the circumstances. The Louvre, for example, just reopened, while beaches in Miami re-closed for the 4th of July.

Brian Lehrer:

With me now, a guest who has been living in France on and off for many years, who is American Thomas Chatterton Williams. He is a contributing writer at the New York Times Magazine, columnist and contributing editor at Harper's Magazine. In addition to the Atlantic where he's got a new piece that a lot of people are reading, and author of the book, Self Portrait in Black and White. His latest piece for the Atlantic is titled, "Do Americans Understand How Badly They're Doing?" Thomas, thanks so much for joining us. Welcome to WNYC.

Thomas Chatterton Williams:

Thanks so much for having me, Brian.

Brian Lehrer:

Where in France are you right now?

Thomas Chatterton Williams:

Right now I'm in a small port town called Treguier in Brittany.

Brian Lehrer:

How back to normal is it there?

Thomas Chatterton Williams:

It's really normal. The beaches are open. The market is open. Many people wear masks, but it's not exactly necessary because there are very few cases out here. This is one of the reasons that France has had the fewest cases, and nationwide yesterday, the numbers were around 500 in the whole country.

Brian Lehrer:

And so where you are, it sounds like wasn't all that locked down even before.

Thomas Chatterton Williams:

No, it was. The entire nation did one of the strictest national quarantines in the world. For eight weeks, you couldn't leave your house to get groceries or go to the pharmacy without a permission slip. Everybody was in the house and cooking for themselves and restaurants were closed. Everything but non-essential businesses were closed for eight weeks, and the country really flattened the curve with a systematic organized response, not a kind of ad hoc region by region response.

Brian Lehrer:

How strict did it get?

Thomas Chatterton Williams:

It got very strict. You were fined if you left your house without a permission slip. So I had mine. You could download it on an app or you could print it out and sign it on paper, but they were pretty strict, and the fines were, I believe 300 euros. It started at 300 euros.

Brian Lehrer:

So having a foot in each of these two countries, could they ever do that in the United States, given American culture?

Thomas Chatterton Williams:

What disturbs me and stresses me out for my family and friends back in the United States is that it seems that it's so big, so regionally different and so chaotic, and so fundamentally informed by a sense of individualism that puts the right to not wear a mask above the duty to mask yourself and protect the most vulnerable among you, that I think that the United States is revealing that it's in many ways, the quality of life can be palpably lower there because the society isn't prepared to make a collective sacrifice.

Brian Lehrer:

France also has a far right political contingent and has a culture of protest, so how did various people in different political camps, if I'm zeroing in on the right political camp there, react to the initial lockdown, and was there any kind of pushback similar to what we're seeing in some of the quarters here?

Speaker 1:

You know, Brian, there really was not anything similar to what you see in America across the ideological spectrum. People accepted that science is real, that epidemiology means something and that the disease was not a partisan actor. So you even had Marine Le Pen, the flag bearer for the national rally, formerly Front National, the far right party, you had her saying that the lockdown wasn't even strict enough in the beginning. There was no such thing as a kind of science denying, right wing that we see in America.

Brian Lehrer:

Listeners, we can take some phone calls with Thomas Chatterton Williams. You know, specifically, I wonder if anybody else listening right now in the U.S. With ties to other countries or listeners in other countries with ties to the U.S. Want to chime in on this. How has your other country dealt with the pandemic, and what is the view on how the U.S. Has handled the pandemic? Ex-pats, American citizens who have moved away, how do you explain the U.S.'s aversion to masks? Of course not everybody, not even most people, but a surprising number of people, our inability to contain the virus. How do you explain it to friends in your new home and has being abroad given you new perspective on anything related? (646)435-7280. Or if you just want to ask Thomas Chatterton Williams, a question there in France. (646)435-7280. (646)435-7280.

Brian Lehrer:

Let's see, there are so many questions I want to ask at the same time. I'm not even sure which way to go. I'm going to go to the title of your article which is, "Do Americans Even Know How Badly They're Doing?" Do you think Americans aren't even aware of how badly we're doing relative to countries like France?

Brian Lehrer:

Oh, did I lose you? Are you able to hear the question?

Speaker 1:

I'm sorry. You cut out. I didn't hear the question. I'm sorry.

Brian Lehrer:

My question was to the title of your article, which seemed to suggest that Americans don't even know how badly we're doing. Did you mean to say that explicitly?

Speaker 1:

Well, the writer never chooses the headline, but that's the gist of what I was trying to get across. I think that a lot of Americans are raised on a myth that says that life in America is better than everywhere else. I think a lot of Americans don't realize how there are many other countries that have handled, particularly that have handled their response to COVID-19 much, much more responsibly and better and have flattened the curve in a systematic way that has also allowed people to get back to work sooner and countries also have social safety net that have not allowed people to fall so low or to be in these unbelievable food lines that you see in America. I mean the French social safety net has been such that there's nothing like the 40 million people who were jobless that we saw in the spring in America.

Speaker 1:

So I think that a lot of Americans still feel that there's a kind of American exceptionalism that puts that kind of at the top. But sadly, some of the exceptionalism is that America is exceptionally chaotic and dangerous.

Brian Lehrer:

I see you're in the news for an additional reason now, you spearheaded the creation of an open letter published in Harper's magazine, titled a letter on justice and open debate. And it warns against quote, an intolerance of opposing views, unquote, and a culture of public shaming online. It was signed, I see, by 153 prominent artists, including Margaret Atwood, Bill T Jones, Wynton Marsalis. With so much going on in the world right now, why is it important to warn against cancel culture? Why is that the cause or a cause you want to take up at this moment?

Speaker 1:

Well, I think that whenever there is a narrowing of acceptable opinions and whenever people can fear social ostracism, shaming, loss of employment for simply good faith disagreement, I think that that's a very dangerous thing, and it requires, I think if the writers, artists and intellectuals can't stand up against that kind of narrowing of acceptable discourse, we can't expect government or our reading public to do it for us. So, you know, this letter didn't come out of a response to a specific incident. It was a response to a general mood that's been in place for some years now. And it comes from both the left and the right. We try to stress in the letter that the canceler and chief has Donald Trump. And I think the most high profile person that's been publicly canceled in the past few years has been Colin Kaepernick. So it's not just a problem on the left, but when the left is trying to correct for the very clear and present danger presented by the authoritarian right, there's a danger that the overcorrection can harden into a dogma that we all see too.

Brian Lehrer:

I guess, in the news, the last few days has been Trump trying to identify with the critics of cancel culture by standing up for Confederate statues, as well as others, but including Confederate statues, is that relevant to your letter?

Speaker 1:

That is completely irrelevant. And someone like Donald Trump is not a good faith actor. He's not a good faith participant in the kind of debate that, speaking for myself, I was trying to participate in and that I'd imagine any of the signatories attempting to participate in. Confederate monuments are not being canceled. There shouldn't be monuments in the United States of America to a side that fought against the country to traitors of the Republic. That to me is a false equivalency with the kind of thing that we're talking about here.

Speaker 1:

When, when Colin Kaepernick cannot work for having a political opinion that he expressed freely, when you have people like David Shore who get fired for sharing simply for tweeting research. That was one of the most egregious examples that happened recently. You have the chairman of the board and the president of the Poetry Foundation forced to step down because their statement in support of Black Lives Matter, in support, I stress was not considered strong enough. They have lost their jobs for what was deemed to be too tepid of a response. You have the same situation on the board of the National Book Critics Circle. These are, these are worrying examples of a kind of authoritarian and intolerant drift in our nations and cultural and media institutions.

Brian Lehrer:

We have so many people calling in with like you, an American living in France with a foot in this country and a foot in another country. Let's take a few of those phone calls. Let's see. How about Michael in Putnam County? Michael you're on WNYC with Thomas Chatterton Williams. Hi, Michael.

Michael:

Hi, good afternoon, gentlemen. I just want to say how I see such a stark contrast between the Czech Republic, where the government has enforced wearing masks and have heavy fines in place and how far along they are because the people obeyed those requirements from the government and how far behind the United States is without our government even stepping in and putting down a policy to protect the people.

Brian Lehrer:

Michael, thank you very much. Mari, calling from Switzerland. You're on WNYC, Hi, Mari.

Mari:

Hi, thank you for taking my call and hello to your neighbor from across the Jura mountains. I also wanted to confirm that in Switzerland, too, it is not a political issue. It's a science issue. We were able to flatten the curve completely. We dropped from being the second highest infection rate in the world, per capita, to only 10 to 20 cases per day, because everybody just followed the rules. People didn't necessarily like it, but they followed the rules. And we've had a recent uptick in cases up to about a hundred to 150 per day, because some asymptomatic people went to nightclubs. Hundreds of people have voluntarily put themselves into quarantine. The authorities have imposed a mask requirement on public transportation and my daughter, and I took a cable car to the top of the mountain yesterday. Every single person in that cable car was wearing a mask and no one complained

Brian Lehrer:

Mari, thank you. Thank you, very, very, very informative. And that number of cases, if that's a nationwide number of new cases per day, 100 something, I mean, New York city alone calling itself a success because we're down to three, 400 cases a day. So just saying Steven in Morristown, you're on WNYC with Thomas Chatterton Williams in France. Hi, Steven.

Stephen:

Hi, Thomas. I have a question or more of a hypothesis was to whether your comment of American exceptionalism contributes to this sense of invulnerability. And I was wondering if France has the same kind of HIPAA laws that prevent really transparent media coverage of the fatality and the real severity of the disease and, and what a tragedy it is that the media coverage of it, if it is a little more transparent in other countries.

Brian Lehrer:

Well, what about that, Thomas? Any thought about that or media coverage of the virus in France in general?

Thomas Chatterton Williams:

Well, there's nothing in France that exists quite like Fox News, you know, so I think that's one of the most extreme examples. The news is the news here. There's not a partisan network that spins the news to diminish the severity of a medical emergency. I think this idea in America that somehow this perverse kind of conception of freedom, that is the freedom not to be responsible, not to be told what to do is a very kind of amateur and childish idea of what it means to have liberty.

Thomas Chatterton Williams:

And I think that what the caller from Switzerland was referring to, and what I've noticed in France is an idea of we're only free if we come together and understand there's a kind of collective effort that has to be made. And then once we make that exertion, everybody is free to live safely and we can open back up. But for eight weeks, we're all on the same page. And if any of us isn't willing to make that exertion, we're all going to lose some of our liberty together.

Brian Lehrer:

Supatra in Summit, New Jersey, you're on WNYC. Hello, Supatra.

Supatra:

Thank you, Brian for taking my call. I have to agree with the gentleman from France, and lady from Switzerland and the one from Morristown. I came from the country Thailand, which had zero cases for a month. And the whole country with about almost 70 million, lots of PPE authorities, which is fabulous. And now the school is open with the teacher, had PPE with masks and face shields and all students wear masks. And then I think that I talked to my friends who's teachers, I was a high school teacher. So high school teachers will do like half the class come on Monday, the other come on Tuesday. And they will do like two Tuesdays, two Mondays, something like that. They actually have friends, but we don't have friends. And also, I would like to point it out that it's obvious I'm wearing masks probably, what do you call it, cause issues. That's not really it. It's just because for all of us, like all had mentioned. Like in Thailand, I have the trip and track. If you go into the airport, they will really get your numbers and then, you know, quarantine.

Brian Lehrer:

Right. So real, real tracing, and I guess, testing and tracing, like we talk about here. I think there are just too many cases here for that to be the method anymore. So Supatra, thank you. So instructive, the Thailand example was zero cases in weeks. We just have a minute left in the program. Let's see if we can get Jose in Rosedale who's got a question for you, Thomas. Jose, right to your question, hi.

Jose:

Good morning, gentlemen. How are you?

Brian Lehrer:

Okay.

Jose:

I am curious, I would like to find out, I know there's a sizable minority population in France, especially from the African colonies of France. And I want to know if you have any information as to the breakdown as to how they're affected?

Brian Lehrer:

And Jose I'm going to leave it there, cause we have only seconds left in the show, but it's a great question. Thomas, we know the disparate Impact in this country, and 20 seconds for whether you're seeing that in France, too.

Thomas Chatterton Williams:

Sure, that is a great question. And it highlights one of the key differences between France and America, which is that in France, there is not data broken down by identity group or ethnicity. So there is not strict data breaking down how Arabs or Africans or people of Arab or African origin were affected. But we know that the places that were hardest hit were some of the suburbs surrounding Paris, where those populations tend to live. So that would a case of class overlapping with ethnic identity, but the French government doesn't officially recognize race.

Brian Lehrer:

Thomas Chatterton Williams, lessons from around the world. Can we maybe get it right? Thomas Chatterton Williams' essay in the Atlantic, "Do Americans Understand How Badly They're Doing?" Thank you so much.

 

 

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