Premier League footballer Kurt Zouma was filmed hitting his cat. Slap in the muzzle. Kick. Immediately, social networks are ablaze. A large fine is imposed. Adidas, Zouma’s first sponsor, terminates its contract. There will be serious consequences. We do not accept animal abuse. It’s very good that way.
Children are locked in the dark. Thrown in the air and caught in extremis. Filmed on the pot. Forced into obscene gestures. It takes place in a crèche near Orléans. The nurses are taken to court. A suspended prison sentence is required. This was not the first time that the courts had to deal with such degrading treatment of young children. We do not accept child abuse. It’s very good that way.
“Meanwhile, private companies specializing in these residences of shame are listed on the stock exchange”
Elderly people soil their diapers and are not changed. Feed on mediocre or insufficient food. Injure themselves and are not treated. Are left in their room. They pay dearly, often beyond their income. Several thousand euros per month. For that price, you can die in abandonment, of a badly treated bedsore for example (case of Françoise Dorin, according to her daughter). The families of these people bear the additional costs. Go into debt. Sometimes sell their house to finance the dependency of their parents. Meanwhile, private companies specializing in these residences of shame are listed on the stock exchange. Remunerate their shareholders (very well). Their leaders (very very good). Make front margins. Rear margins. Leverage state money. Institutionalize abuse. Defend themselves. Send alarmed families to graze. Lock them up in blackmail. Reports are produced. Alarm cries are sounded. For ten years. Since twenty years. Nothing is happening. Because the fact is there: we accept violence against the elderly.
Why would the managers of Orpea have given up on the economic model of old age? Why would they suddenly have corrected its faults, erased its vices, rectified its indecency? The business works. People are refused. The shareholders are happy. The state finds nothing to complain about. We even ended up giving a name to this economic model: it’s the silver economy. Silver : silver. Like the hair of boarders. Like their bank account too.
Victor Castanet’s book seems to have carried more than all the previous surveys. So much the better. Investigations are open. It’s good. The blind spot remains, and it is terrible: why have we accepted this occultation of our elders for so long? Why did we accept their relegation and resolve to make their end of life a nightmare? The Orpéa scandal is the scandal of an entire economy, of a way of making money on the back of vulnerability and the absence of choice, but also on the back of cowardice and the resignation of families: us.
“The role of politics in this affair is not to punish and rectify. It is to change everything”
Orpea will pay. Others will come. Will we change? Will we be able to hear that the trial against these companies goes far beyond their framework, and that we accept for the elderly what seems unacceptable to us for a cat? In truth, the subject is neither economic, nor sanitary, nor regulatory. It is through and through societal, and therefore political. The role of politics in this matter is not to punish and rectify. It is to change everything. To find a completely different way of doing things. To restore the pact between generations, to give old age back its place and its dignity.
We can clearly see the leaders of these groups struggling like flies caught in the media spider’s web. There is something pathetic there. But we don’t see the rest of the world move an ear. In truth, nothing strikes our consciences more deeply. This scandal, we allowed it, we lived it, we silenced it. We knew.
If Orpea had been a crèche or an animal shelter, the whole system would already be on the ground, the leaders sacked, the citizens in revolt, the politicians at work. There would be a parliamentary inquiry. Seats. New laws. Radical commitments. But they are old, so eventually all of this will settle down. A few prudential rules will no doubt come out of the administrative surveys. And we can sleep soundly. Waiting for us to be parked there in our turn, in these houses. I’m eager to.