News from France

Face à une attitude de suspicion et de déni du caractère organique de leurs symptômes, ces personnes ont été contraintes à une errance thérapeutique insatisfaisante et dangereuse.
Translation
Faced with an attitude of suspicion and denial of the organic nature of their symptoms, these people were forced to an unsatisfactory and dangerous therapeutic wandering.

Good commentary on bsky by Après J20 Long COVID association:
 
"Faced with an attitude of suspicion and denial of the organic nature of their symptoms, these people were forced to an unsatisfactory and dangerous therapeutic wandering."
Thanks for that translation, @Yann04

Something about that quote really hits home. I'm sure many of us have had that feeling of wandering in the wilderness (often for many years) hoping for some kind of treatment that would help.
 
New French article about MECFS, related to a previous initiative held in Marseille by voxEM collective (founded early 2026)

voxEM bluesky post :

Direct link to the article : https://cqfd-journal.org/Encephalomyelite-myalgique-une

The article introduction (auto translation) :
Mistreated - Myalgic Encephalomyelitis: A Battle Fought to the Brink of Exhaustion

Myalgic encephalomyelitis affects at least 450,000 people in France, who face direct denial from health authorities, sexism from the medical profession, and neglect by the government due to a lack of research into treatments and social protection. Yet the disease is widespread.

I’d like to take this opportunity to identify myself as a co-founder of the voxEM collective :emoji_wave:

I’m probably not objective, but this article is one of the few published in France that accurately addresses ME/CFS and the medical and institutional neglect suffered by pwME
 
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A very good article from local news covering severe ME/CFS through Alicia who is bedridden.

 
For some reason proponents of psychobehavioral models of Long Covid Lemogne and Ranque are participating in a Long Covid conference in Paris. Protesters have shown in person and in the online portion of the event. According to the poster, the conference was organized by Lemogne and Ranque using EU funds.

Thread:


Protesters have been evicted by force:


Ranque has been previously recorded making disparaging comments about LC to (I think) a GP conference, and online event participants posted the links, leading to staffers scrambling to censor them:
 
The famous magazine “Elle”, (sells around 320’000 copies per edition), had a large double page feature on ME/CFS. While the title is kind of shit “The Illness of Fatigue” the content actually seems really good according to the millions missing France summary, talks about psychologisation, loss, very severe cases, assisted suicide, etc.

An online edition hasn’t been published yet so I’ll just link to the millions missing france summary.
 
Youtube of the French Long Covid protest. The female patient was being pushed quite aggressively backwards by a conference participant (or Security?), then pushed out of the room. The LC patient with the Mic kept saying "Do not touch us! Do not touch her!".

ME/CFS and Long Covid patients are just disposable lab rats to these opportunist, parasitic psychologisers (my view).



You can do the Settings to translate from French to English.






Transcript (I left out repetitions). This is Youtube auto-translate so bear that in mind:

Start:
"We are people living with Long Covid and we are sick. Don't touch us! Don't touch us! We are people living with Long Covid and we are sick. We are going to take 2 minutes of your time. Don't touch us! (A Conference person had started pushing a woman protester).

Stop touching these people. Tell them to stop touching that lady.

We are sick and members of the Winslow Public health and Long Covid Action Associates.

We are sick, we are disabled and we are dying because of charlatans like you, Cedric Lemogne and you, Brigitte Ranque.

The Long Covid patients are exhausted from seeing your faces, from hearing you talk about us without us.

We are fed up with seeing public money spent on projects that endanger sick people. Don't touch me! Don't touch me.

We want real care. Neither cognitive behavioural therapy nor meditation."



[Conference speaker at the mic grabs the Long Covid protestors arm, the same arm the protester man is using to hold his stick for support and balance).

The Long Covid protestor says to him: "You are hurting me".

The conference speaker says to the LC protestor: "No sir, You are hurting Us".


Long Covid protestor continues:
"But medicine for our lungs, our hearts, our stomachs, our immune systems, our brains damaged by the covid virus. And we're not talking about antidepressants and anxiolytics [anti anxiety drugs]

We want proper examinations, we want blood tests, we want imaging.

We will not let you off the hook, and we will denounce. We will attack all projects, all investment that psychologize Long Covid.
If the virus persists in our bodies, so does our anger.
Nothing for us without us. Nothing is possible without us."

Finish.

He Leaves the podium.

.
 
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Sounds like a very meaningful action.

There will probably be a news article about “hysterical anti-science activists”. But I feel it’s probably best to not let our oppressors, people who undoubtedly cause excess deaths, go unchallenged except in hyper hedged decorum. This is about our lives, and I don’t blame people for acting like it.

I do worry some of the claims made into the microphone had no biological evidence and thus perhaps hurt credibility a little, though.
 
Unbelievable!

When the conference participant/presenter at the mic grabs the LC protestor's arm, the protestor says
"You are hurting me"

The conference presenter says "No sir. You are hurting Us"

The conference participant at the mic equates the physical pain he is inflicting on an LC patient by grabbing his arm - with the inconvenience and upset of the Psychologising Psychiatrists and researchers being challenged!

Says it all really.

.
 
I do worry some of the claims made into the microphone had no biological evidence and thus perhaps hurt credibility a little, though.
I agree.
Long Covid protestor continues:
"But medicine for our lungs, our hearts, our stomachs, our immune systems, our brains damaged by the covid virus. And we're not talking about antidepressants and anxiolytics [anti anxiety drugs]
This is probably fine. There are some LC patients with damage.
We will not let you off the hook, and we will denounce. We will attack all projects, all investment that psychologize Long Covid.
If the virus persists in our bodies, so does our anger.
Nothing for us without us. Nothing is possible without us."
Viral persistence is not proven, especially not as a cause of ongoing issues. But it could be taken as a metaphor, or to mean «if [the issues caused by] the [infection] persists in our bodies».

It’s not like all HIV/AIDS campaigning was fully medically accurate all the time. And there are plenty of researchers that will go on record saying viral persistence is a concern.
 
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