Scandal is brewing in France as it has been revealed it was the policy of successive French governments to burn and not replace swathes of their expensive stockpiles of PPE. In 2011, the nation’s stockpile reached its peak with one billion surgical masks and 714 million high performance FFP2 masks. By 2020, there were just 117 million masks left…

As recently as this year, PPE equipment was being burned as part of a policy introduced when potential pandemics like Swine Flue and SARS were discovered to be less deadly than originally thought. As a result of the self-imposed drought of supplies, French clinicians have lacked sufficient protective equipment, and Macron began the pandemic by recommending people do not wear face masks. He has since u-turned, and seen popularity tumbling…