Raoult, social distancing and the rebelious French ‐ A reflection on COVID‐19 treatments online debates

France was in lockdown since 17 March untill 11 May 2020 and, in this measure against the COVID‐19 pandemic that could be the plot for a dystopic bad movie, social life has gone online. However, many in France believe that they have found the solution to the crisis in Didier Raoult from Marseille’s IHU Mediterranée Infection. Raoult, a professor in infectious‐disease studies with a research focus on viruses, claimed in February to have found a cure for COVID‐19. According to him, the chloroquine molecule, used to treat malaria, combined with azithromycin, is able to reduce the virus infection in patients. This reflection is not an examination of the validity of that claim or the validity of Raoult’s research but rather a look at the communication around Raoult on social networks such as Facebook, as these virtual gathering sites have become the new public space.

An examination of Facebook groups dedicated to Raoult reveals two significant factors: (1) the Christ‐like face of the professor, with long white hair and him even being referred to as ‘Saviour’ and (2) that he is presented not just as fighting against the virus but against the French government and even ‘globalisation’, as the group names seem to suggest that the cure also fights against detested or distrusted socio‐political systems. One of the groups with over 21,000 members even touts the aim of electing Raoult as the French President in 2022, while others ‘support’ the professor from the ‘people’s’ side. One of the groups even appeals to ‘Senegalese’ pride in the professor, who was born in Dakar in 1952, and emphasises his ties to Africa, as if this heightens the perception of him as a truth‐speaking and trustworthy figure. Moreover, in French society, only medical doctors are referred to as ‘docteurs’, but various Facebook groups call Raoult ‘Docteur Raoult’ or even ‘Professeur Raoult’ to confer more authority on both him and his claims. Even stressing that Raoult is from Marseille, as most of these groups do, sets him in opposition to the measures taken by centralised power in Paris, so that the cure is portrayed as arising in a silenced Provence.

This representation of Raoult in these online spaces raises the following questions: (1) Is Raoult a supreme leader of a new sect in which COVID‐19 is the new evil to be fought through medical research and the use of one powerful talisman: the chloroquine molecule? (2) Who has the authority to cure the disease and in whom do the people believe? (3) From an anthropological point of view, has medical research turned into the new religion of 2020, with a Christ‐like figure who is in charge of saving the world through the eucharist of this molecule in a digital blue church, in which social distance strengthens the bonds of fellowship?

It is not just that the French people seem to mistrust the decisions made by their government to fight the pandemic (International Survey on Coronavirus 2020), but Docteur Raoult seems to serve as a focal point for other fights and fears found throughout broader French society. The debates online over Raoult’s claims create a separation between trust in the government and trust in medicine. The French population is divided into those for and against, believers and non‐believers in Raoult’s gospel of this new molecular religion.