In 1993, I had written an article following a Swiss TV program on the theme "Should tobacco smoke be regulated outside the private sphere? having sensed the rise of scientific fundamentalism. Fifteen years later, in the midst of the AH5N1 crisis, I reworked this article for the Matin Dimanche readers' letter. Today, it is time to put it back on the front page...

Attention is the most precious commodity of the human being - and probably of any conscious creature. It is the attention I give to a person, an object, a situation that gives it reality. I pay attention to you, I am interested in you: I charge this attention with appreciation, disdain, interest, love, judgement, expectation, desire, disgust, etc.

A Danish editor publishes various cartoons of Mohammed to boost his sales and excite the public. And of course, the followers of the prophet feel abused, sullied, violated in their beliefs.
They demonstrate, shout, scream, inveigh, threaten, offended by such obscenity.

And here it is: the virus is released in the media: the avian flu is coming. Hysteria is running high. So far, since 2003, there have been 100 cases of bird flu caused by the H5N1 virus worldwide, 60 of which have resulted in death. A number infinitely lower than the number of deaths caused by flower pots falling from windowsills during the same period.

Dear incarcerated,
Even in your worst nightmares, you would never have imagined that one day your prison would shrink to the point where there remained no other solution for you but to escape. And you had arranged things so well. Your work, your hobbies, your insurances, your social position, your philosophical or religious options, everything seemed so stable, solid, secure, there for eternity.