The insufferable whiteness of French anti-covid activism
I do not want to write this article. I wish I did not need to write this article. But after failing for so many years, the first step is to look at that failure without flinching.
The whiteness of French anti-covid activism - which we call autodéfense sanitaire - is insufferable. This is an attempt at a survey, without asking for forgiveness or attempting to apologize. You have to start with a diagnostic if you're going to find the right treatment.
First in line
In the US, a 2022 study suggests that white people take fewer precautions once they learn about racial disparities in the impact of the covid pandemic.
In Sweden, an April 2021 report by the public health agency shows that people who were born abroad have higher odds of being admitted to intensive care or dying from covid.
A meta-analysis from the end of 2023 shows that long covid is tearing through the African continent.
An article from May 2025 stresses that accessing healthcare is especially difficult for Black Americans with long covid.
In short: BIPOC are more exposed to covid as a result of their more precarious life conditions, they get sicker, they die more often, they have less access to healthcare. They are the first victims of the failures of public health, and on top of that white people stop trying when we learn all that.
How many layers of racism is that, even?
Keeping yourself safe is expensive
Good FFP2 respirators typically cost between 50 cents and one euro per piece, when you know where to look. They're often more expensive from pharmacies or hardware stores, when ordering online is not an option.
Different models fit different faces. Who can invest in a 20 euros box that might not be the right size, especially when most respirators are designed for white noses?
Air purifiers typically cost a few hundred euros. DIY models require access to hardware and spare time. 3D printing and laser cutting are nice, but they're for nerds with money or contacts.
The PlusLife test device costs close to 300 euros and test cards go for 7 euros a piece.
Who lands a full remote job? Who can afford to defy their boss and wear a respirator at work? Who can hide their face without facing police violence?
The Swedish report notably mentions that people born abroad live in shared housing more frequently. Who can isolate in a separate room when infected? Who can pay for an unplanned hotel stay?
We recommend - as a ballpark, without a true source - that people rest for six weeks after a covid infection, to reduce the odds of lingering issues that might be for life. Who can afford to put down their burden that long?
France is not the USA
The bulk of covid harm reduction resources are written in English, generally by people and collectives based in the USA. It probably has something to do with a long tradition of mutual aid in the face of a murderous system. Scientific studies, explainer articles, zines, political breakdowns, buyer's guides, there are so many things.
The language barrier is real. Translating US resources requires intensive labor notably to adapt them to the French context. Creating original resources is just as exhausting and is often done with a language level and a degree of complexity that make them inaccessible. The bulk of the work happens in online spaces that are not super-accessible.
I've attempted to produce resources that are easier to read. It's an especially difficult task.
In the US, BIPOC apparently wear respirators more often than white people. I see the opposite in my part of France, as do my comrades. I don't know why, and I don't know where to start to answer this question.
When I do see people of color masking - a hijabi pinning it to her veil, an elderly person wearing one under their nose or hanging from an ear - those are typically surgical masks. FFP2s are a white person's thing. I don't dare to go up to people in the street and offer FFP2s.
Our spaces - Winslow, the ARRA, mask blocs - are very, very white. There are of course a few people of color: they are ridiculously few compared to the country's demographics.
None of this is to condemn those efforts. It's an assessment - we have failed, collectively. I have failed.
Familiarity is a trap
Around Lille, my mask bloc comrades and myself - all white - focus on spaces to which we already belong. Those are mostly local queer, anarchist, anti-ableist spaces - and they're very white.
One reason for this limited scope is that working the topic in a given space is easier when you already belong to it. When you come from the outside, without pre-existing social links, you will not be heard and you will not be treated well. I made this mistake when I moved back to France - though I didn't have much of a choice. The result is that I have the reputation of a shit-stirring pain in the ass who loves to lecture and hates fun.
Another reason is that we have limited energy. It's simpler to keep supplying FFP2s to the place we already go to several times each month and to make mask-wearing a norm at the events we put on ourselves.
Those spaces are extremely white. Not fully - a few people of color regularly drop by the masked events. This whiteness is a widespread problem with queer spaces in France. That's precisely why those few people are working hard at setting up events by and for people of color. Will they take covid precautions in turn? It would seem inappropriate to ask.
White savior, white medicine
The J'en Suis J'y Reste LGBTQ+ center has a commission dedicated to welcoming and supporting asylum seekers. No covid precautions are taken during their work, despite the obvious vulnerability of the people they help. I don't know how to bring it up. I don't know how to ask them to tackle one more topic. I have no bandwidth to actively join the group and so I would just be the shit-stirring pain in the ass.
I am an anti-authoritarian at heart and so making the people I help autonomous is at the heart of everything I do. Saying "Do it like this, it's good" is not an option: I want people to understand and make the best free choice for themselves. My discomfort turns to inaction.
I have information and means that others do not have. This is the result of my class privilege, brittle as it may be due to my own marginalizations. I do not want to be the white person who knows better. Producing accessible resources seems like a decent compromise, but how do you convince people to read them?
Colonial powers and France in particular have a lengthy history of using knowledge, science, medicine to opress the people we have colonized. How do we account for that dark past in our activism? How do you convince people to get vaccinated when their country of origin still serves as a low-cost test lab in the 21st century?
Getting involved in causes such as Gaza would likely be a good way to reach a different audience. It would however seem cynical - or even downright racist - to join a movement purely to target a demographic.
If one of us was heavily involved in those fights, if one of those collectives got in touch, it's self-evident that we would share our resources. But what do we do without that first contact? Once more discomfort turns to inaction.
Many questions, no answers
The topic haunts me. Between my job and my activism, I already do too much. I attempt to find time for a life that fits my safety standards somewhere in there. It excuses nothing. Routine and tiredness are traps too.
I'm all too aware of our limitations, of our failures. I don't know where to start. Maybe laying the problem out in full view can be a start.