The May 12th massacre at the MSF-supported maternity hospital in Dasht-e-Barchi (Afghanistan)  raises, yet again, the question of our limits with regard to risk. What is an acceptable level of danger for humanitarian aid workers? How do we set limits? Why would MSF decide to leave Kabul but remain in Herat, for example, or leave Afghanistan but remain in Niger, Burkina Faso, Mali, or Somalia, where the teams also face extreme danger?

In this paper, the two authors examine certain aspects of the French response to the epidemic in the light of the experience of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) in that field, primarily with respect to the relationship between the actors of the response and the beneficiaries.

After a few months of respite the coronavirus epidemic has resumed its spread. With the second wave becoming a reality in many European countries, the Crash team decided to share some recent reading on the biomedical, political and social aspects of the pandemic in an attempt to shed some light on this tragic Season 2. As in previous editions, some articles are in English and some in French, and they are taken from both mainstream and specialist sources.

The principle of impartiality, which is often reduced to a principle of mathematical distribution, was originally coined by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), at that time on a quest for legitimacy. However, reducing impartiality to a resource distribution algorithm strengthens the overarching position held by non-territorial organisations. This is the theory put forward by the author in his latest book.

The benefit of the vaccine is only real in the context of a rational and comprehensive biomedical, social, political and economic response, adapted to the local assessment of the health crisis and its impacts.
 

L’urgence sanitaire justifie-t-elle ce deuxième confinement et ses conséquences économiques et sécuritaires ? “L’Obs” a fait débattre un médecin, Rony Brauman, et un économiste, Gaël Giraud. La sévérité de leur constat interpelle. 

Cet entretien à été publié dans la Revue Alters Media le 1er novembre 2020. 

En dépit d’une prise de conscience collective et simultanée, les réponses apportées à la crise sanitaire ont été essentiellement nationales. Alors qu’elle était plus que jamais concernée par les défis engendrés par la propagation fulgurante du coronavirus, l’OMS est restée effacée. Malmenée par les politiques chinoises et américaines, elle illustre à sa manière la déroute du multilatéralisme.

Il y a dix ans, le Haut-commissariat des Nations Unies aux Droits de l’Homme publiait son rapport Mapping sur les crimes les plus graves commis en République démocratique du Congo (RDC) entre 1993 et 2003. Dans cette interview paru dans l'Humanité le 6 octobre, Jean Hervé Bradol parle de l'expérience MSF, notamment des conséquences de la fermeture des camps de réfugiés rwandais en RDC. par une offensive des rebelles congolais de l’époque.

On the 31st January, a symposium was held at Sciences Po in support of Fariba Adelkhah and Roland Marchal, researchers at Sciences Po's Center for International Research (CERI) who were arrested in Iran on June 5, 2019. Roland Marchal was released on 20th March 2020 in exchange for an Iranian engineer detained in France. On 6th May Fariba Adelkhah was sentenced to 6 years imprisonment for "propaganda against the political system of the Islamic Republic, and collusion to undermine national security". The researcher was offered conditional release on condition that she terminates her research, but she refused. 

The symposium brought together diplomats, journalists, humanitarians and researchers, with the aim of "nourishing reflection about prisoners and hostages, from a political, legal and ethical point of view". Fabrice Weissman presented the experience of Médecins Sans Frontières in the face of kidnappings.  
 

Interview by Helai Hosseini. A first version was published on the website of the MSF France association on 31 July 2020.

In the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement in the United States, voices have risen within MSF denouncing the racist and discriminatory nature of our organization. Equal opportunity, they say, is not offered to all our employees. Founded in France in the early 70s by a handful of doctors and journalists, the organization has grown and become international,  now employing over 46,000 people around the world, nearly 39,000 of whom are recruited locally. How has MSF’s policy towards its personnel evolved down the years? What is currently being done to fight inequalities? Here is Jean Hervé Bradol’s take on the major phases that have marked MSF’s transformation and the ways in which discussions are engaged today.

Dans cette interview parue dans Le Parisien le 6 septembre, Rony Brauman souligne les risques encourus dans certains pays un mois après l’attentat du Niger qui a coûté la vie à 8 personnes, dont 6 jeunes humanitaires français. 

In France, from March onwards, many sociologists regularly appear in the media. Based on this observation, Marc Le Pape analysed 37 articles written during the containment period, dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic.