Here the call of writer and academic women: "We demand that national egoisms drop"

From the houses where we are confined, from these houses which have been our living and care spaces for centuries, these houses to which we return today after work to take care of our families, from these houses we write to Europe's governments and rulers.

We are not asking, we are demanding, in the face of this tragedy that it is the Covid-19 pandemic that strikes us all, that national egoisms drop, that Europe be united, solidary and responsible. Women have always shown great strength in reacting and holding families together, feeding and caring for them. They showed it during the last world war, they show it today, with men, to face the pandemic: they are indeed overwhelmingly committed in the activities currently authorized.

Unlike in the post-war era, this time the women are there. We are on an equal footing, we want reconstruction to be done according to the requirements and values ​​inscribed in our history, in our experiences that have been neglected for too long. The epidemic has returned to the center of our lives the human body, family, relationships, loneliness, health, the relationship between generations, between the economy and people. If Europe manages to cope with this shock, it will be because these values, which were mainly attributed to the "private" sphere, are becoming these days public values​​. These values are fighting the spread of the disease, they are - we hope - winning.

Europe must be rebuild on these values, on the women's strength and skills; Europe must give life to a great common project which takes these priorities into account. In their houses, the women, separated from each other, are united in this common will.

Signatories:

Ursula Apitzsch, politologue et sociologue, université de Francfort, Cornelia Goethe Centrum ; Bojana Bratic, traductrice, Serbie ; Cristina Comencini, écrivaine et réalisatrice, Italie ; Marcella Diemoz, physicienne, Institut national de physique nucléaire, Italie ; Dubravka Duric, poétesse et chercheuse, Serbie ; Annie Ernaux, écrivaine, France ; Elena Ferrante, écrivaine, Italie ; Ute Gerhard, sociologue, université de Francfort ; Lena Inowlocki, sociologue, université de Francfort ; Julia Kristeva, linguiste, psychanalyste, philosophe et écrivaine, France ; Dacia Maraini, écrivaine, Italie ; Gertrude Moser-Wagner, artiste, Autriche ; Laura Pugno, écrivaine, Italie ; Annalisa Rosselli, économiste, Académie des Lyncéens, Italie.

See the source « Nous exigeons que tombent les égoïsmes nationaux » See also ‘We can’t go back to normal’: how will coronavirus change the world? And also The hidden heroes of COVID-19: My public health co-workers