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Wihtol de Wenden, Catherine

Coronavirus et migrations

2021 - Franco Angeli

9-16 p.

  • Coronavirus has claimed around 545,000 lives worldwide, an underestimated figure, including 132,000 in the United States, 67,000 in Brazil, 44,000 in the United Kingdom, 34,000 in Italy, 32,000 in Mexico and 30,000 in France, according to Agence France Presse. An important figure, undoubtedly underestimated, but definitely lower than the great pandemics of the past. Compared to other historical epidemics, the death toll is limited because the Black Death (40 million deaths between 1347 and 1352) and the Spanish flu (50 million between 1918 and 1919) had claimed many more victims. Its link with migration is due to frequent amalgamations with the Other, whose refusal would be justified by the health risks due to its mobility and the borders it loses, as well as its poverty.
  • In the past, the search for a foreign scapegoat was common: against Jews during the Black Death, beggars and the poor, then ragpickers, foreigners, seasonal workers during the cholera epidemic of 1832, the Spaniards during the socalled Spanish flu in 19181919. Today it is the Asians and above all the Chinese, but above all the foreigners, who have been the target of the rejection of the Other as in Hungary. [Publisher's text].

Is part of

Mondi migranti : 1, 2021