Demining operation. After the riots that shook France last week, the executive assures him: calm has returned to France. A message also held in the direction of foreign visitors, while the images of the spectacular violence have been around the world. At the dawn of the summer season, the government is therefore on all fronts to try to reassure international tourists.
“France is one of the most popular tourist destinations in the world and we will do everything to keep it that way, naturally guaranteeing the safety of all tourists on French soil,” said the Minister of the Economy. Tuesday in an interview with the British daily The Telegraph. And the Bercy tenant insisted: “Our British friends must be happy to visit France and have no fear. France is a safe country, France is a rule of law,” he insisted, urging travelers not to change their vacation plans. It must be said that the British Foreign Office may have worried some, by updating its travel advice page for France last week. He called in particular to “avoid areas where riots are taking place” or to “take out travel insurance and check that it offers sufficient coverage”.
Invited on the American channel CNN on Tuesday, the government’s number two tried to send the same message to foreign investors, possibly frightened by the images of ransacked and looted shops and public buildings. “This will have no impact on French growth, on French attractiveness or on French tourism,” said Bruno Le Maire in English. “The French economy is solid, the daily life of French citizens is not threatened by what happened. We are returning to a calmer situation,” he added.
His colleague at Bercy Olivia Grégoire, responsible in particular for tourism, will be invited this Wednesday evening to the television news of Al Jazeera, the famous Qatari channel, the most watched in the Arab world. The Minister Delegate for Tourism “will recall that the peak has passed, that 45,000 police and gendarmes remain mobilized to restore order in a sustainable way and that France remains a great land of welcome”, specifies one in his office. . A medium that was not chosen at random. On the Qatari channel, the French government will address Arab customers, after having spoken to Anglo-Saxon tourists on CNN and in the Telegraph. An intervention by the member of the government in a Hispanic media is also in the pipeline.
“We are part of the same approach as Bruno Le Maire at CNN and the Telegraph: that of reassuring and restoring some truths”, says one in the entourage of the Minister Delegate. In the cabinet of Bruno Le Maire, we also explain that we wanted in particular to “correct certain interpretations or readings of the event by foreign media which are not exact”. Either the image of an entire France on fire and blood and an Emmanuel Macron overwhelmed by the urban violence that followed the death of young Nahel in Nanterre (Hauts-de-Seine) during a roadside check.
See also Death of Nahel: behind the figures, urban violence more intense than during the riots of 2005
Sign of its importance for the image and the hexagonal economy, the file is followed in the highest spheres of the State. In Olivia Grégoire’s office, it is indicated that “the Élysée is following these subjects very closely”. But it is Matignon who coordinates this intergovernmental communication. If the entourage of the Prime Minister confirms having coordinated the communication of the members of the government around the riots so that they “talk about certain subjects to their ecosystems”, we judge that there is “nothing unusual” in what they say in the international media.
Ministers’ interventions also aim to avoid letting the riots cut off the momentum of the excellent tourist season that is coming. Before the urban violence broke out, Olivia Grégoire wanted to be confident: “We will most certainly exceed the activity records recorded in 2019 this year”, she welcomed last month, based on a survey carried out by Atout France and DNA Tourism.
As for tourism professionals, some are already reporting numerous cancellations of foreign tourists following the riots, particularly in Paris. “You have to keep your cool, we don’t have a wave of cancellations in Paris,” insisted Olivia Grégoire on Tuesday, whose entourage fears that the concerns of hoteliers and tour operators will turn into a “self-fulfilling prophecy”. It remains to be seen whether the messages hammered home by the executive will resonate with a foreign clientele drenched in images of destruction and ultra-violent clashes between law enforcement and (very) young rioters.
