Immediately after a partial relax of the lockdown Paris did not set itself to large street festivity. On May 11 streets were more saturated with people moving in between reopened shops than with those simply strolling, meeting and spontaneously chatting. The emancipatory shopping hasn’t stayed for the main expression of the rediscovered collectivity. Media quickly focused opinions on sunny picnics marking several urban locations. What draws smaller attention, the proportion of persons wearing masks in the street visibly decreases every next week-end. May 20 was the first evening when massive applause from Parisian windows and balconies, destined to medical workers, was scarce or interrupted. An important landmark in the perception of the epidemic has been crossed.
Meanwhile the virus is there. And the words designating what to do and what to avoid are weighty. They form a context in which reactions to risks are split: to get the virus or to get a fine, to lose job or to be deprived of essential liberties. Urban space is reset as a new space of competition, predefined by older tensions between lifestyles brought out in segregated factions of social classes.
To mask (not): contrasted social worlds
A double bind of epidemic self-control and of police enforcement is still urgent around the concept of distancing. Regional authorities continue to communicate preventive measures, such as a prohibition to gather in more than 10 persons in public, to take public transport unmasked and to consume alcohol in public spaces (this one to stop massive hangouts). Almost 1000 fines were imposed during the first week on those who left the 100km limit without permit.
While many parks are still closed following the same restrictive measures, in certain urban locations human density is simply impressive. As long as these locations «belong» to different social classes, a striking contrast is clearly observable in relationships with a fundamental epidemic object — the mask. Whereas white young bourgeois often avoid wearing masks, at least a third (or more) of black poorer young wear them.
This is partly explained by a much tougher police control, going up to arbitrary violence, destined to non-white populations during the lockdown. So, to wear a mask, especially for a young black man, is a protective measure… against the police. But that does not make the only reason.
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