Solidarity as Political Strategy

A heatwave in 2003 caused 15,000 deaths in France. This article examines the impact of the public health crisis on French public management, considering how government actors across various state institutions, including central and decentralized tiers of public administration, have been engaged in reform. It studies how these actors in the post-crisis reform process established responsibility and drew lessons. The paper shows that solidarity was used discursively in a game of political blameshifting and experimentation. It also points to the politics behind the framing of crisis enquiries.