The prime minister had run out of papers to shuffle. He tapped his pen lightly on his glass of water, calling for attention and silence, I hate to interrupt this interesting debate of yours, from which, although I may well have seemed somewhat distracted, I feel I have learned a great deal, because, as experience should teach us, there is nothing like a good argument to release accumulated tension, especially in a situation like this, which is constantly reminding us that we have to do something, although quite what we don't know. He paused very deliberately, pretended to consult some notes, then went on, So, now that we are all calm and relaxed, with our spirits less inflamed, we can, at last, approve the proposal put forward by the minister of defense, namely, the declaration of a state of siege for an indeterminate period and with immediate effect from the moment it is made public. There was a more or less general murmur of assent, albeit with variations of tone whose origins were impossible to identify, despite the minister of defense taking his eyes on a rapid panoramic excursion to catch any note of disagreement or muted enthusiasm. The prime minister went on, Experience, alas, has also taught us that when the time comes for them to be acted upon even the most perfect and polished of ideas can fail, whether because of some last-minute hiccup, or because of a gap between expectation and reality, or because, at some critical point, the situation got out of control, or because of a thousand other possible reasons that it is not worth our while going into right now and for which we would not have time, it is therefore vital always to have at the ready a replacement or complementary idea, which would prevent, as might well happen in this case, the emergence of a power vacuum, or to use another more alarming expression, of street power, either of which would have disastrous consequences. Accustomed to the prime minister's rhetoric, which took the form of three steps forward and two steps back, or, put another way, sitting firmly on the fence, his ministers were patiently awaiting his final, concluding, definitive word, the one that would explain everything. It did not come. The prime minister took a sip of water, dabbed at his lips with a white handkerchief which he took from his inside jacket pocket, made as if to consult his notes, but instead, at the last moment, pushed them to one side and said, If the results of the state of siege fall below expectations, that is, if they prove incapable of restoring the citizens to democratic normality, to the balanced, sensible use of an electoral law which, due to an imprudent lack of attention by the legislators, left the door open to something which, without fear of paradox, it would be reasonable to classify as a legal abuse, then I would like to inform this council now that I, as prime minister, foresee the application of another measure which, as well as providing psychological reinforcement of the measure we have just taken, I am referring, of course, to the declaration of a state of siege, could, I feel sure, by itself reset the troubled needle of our country's political scales and put an end once and for all to the nightmare situation into which we have been plunged. Another pause, another sip of water, another dab with the handkerchief, then he went on, You might well ask why, in that case, we do not simply implement that measure now instead of wasting our time setting up a state of siege which, as we well know, will make every aspect of life very difficult for the capital's population, both the guilty and the innocent, and that question is not without relevance, there are, however, important factors that cannot be ignored, some purely logistical in nature, others not, the main one being the effect, which it would be no exaggeration to describe as traumatic, of the sudden introduction of this extreme measure, which is why I feel we should opt for a gradual sequence of actions, of which the state of siege will be the first. The prime minister again shuffled his papers, but did not, this time, touch his glass of water, I understand your curiosity on the subject, he said, but I will say nothing further about the matter now, except to inform you that I was received in audience this morning by his excellency the president of the republic, to whom I presented my idea, which received his entire and unconditional support. You will learn more later, now, before closing this productive meeting, I ask all of you, in particular the ministers of defense and of the interior, who will, together, shoulder responsibility for the complex actions required to impose and carry out the declaration of the state of siege, to work diligently and energetically toward the same desired end. The armed forces and the police, whether acting within the ambit of their specific areas of competence or in joint operations, always observing the most rigorous mutual respect and avoiding any arguments over precedence that would prove prejudicial to our aims, are charged with the patriotic task of leading the lost sheep back to the fold, if you will allow me to use an expression so beloved of our forefathers and so deeply rooted in our pastoral traditions. And remember, you must do everything possible to ensure that those who are, for the moment, only our opponents do not instead become the enemies of the nation. May god go with you and guide you on your sacred mission so that the sun of concord may once more light the consciences of our fellow citizens and so that peace may restore to their daily lives the harmony that has been lost.
While the prime minister was appearing on television to announce the establishment of a state of siege, invoking reasons of national security resulting from the current political and social instability, a consequence, in turn, of the action taken by organized subversive groups who had repeatedly obstructed the people's right to vote, units of infantry and military police, supported by tanks and other combat vehicles, were, at the same time, occupying train stations and setting up posts at all the roads leading out of the capital. The main airport, about twenty-five kilometers to the north of the city, was outside the army's specific area of control and would, therefore, continue to function without any restrictions other than those foreseen at times of amber alert, which meant that planes carrying tourists would still be able to land and take off, although journeys made by those native to the country, while not, strictly speaking, prohibited, would be strongly discouraged, except in special circumstances to be examined on a case-by-case basis. Images of these military operations invaded the houses of the capital's bewildered inhabitants with, as the reporter put it, the unstoppable force of a straight punch. Images of officers giving orders, of sergeants yelling at their men to carry out these orders, of sappers erecting barriers, of ambulances and transmitters, of spotlights lighting up the highway as far as the first bend, of waves of soldiers, armed to the teeth, jumping out of trucks and taking up positions, as well equipped for an immediate hard-fought battle as for a long war of attrition. Families whose members worked or studied in the capital merely shook their heads at this war-like display and murmured, They must be mad, but others, who, every morning, despatched a father or a son to a factory on one of the industrial estates that surround the city and who waited every evening to welcome them back, now asked themselves how and on what they were going to live if they were not allowed to leave or enter the city. Perhaps they'll issue safe-conduct passes to those with jobs outside, said an old man, who had retired so many years ago that he still used terminology from the days of the franco-prussian wars or other ancient conflicts. Yet the wise old man was not so very wrong, the proof being that, the following day, business associations were quick to bring their well-founded anxieties to the government's notice, While we unreservedly and with an unwavering sense of patriotism support the energetic measures taken by the government, they said, as being a necessary campaign of national salvation to oppose the harmful effects of thinly disguised subversive acts, allow us, nonetheless, and with the greatest respect, to ask the competent authorities for the urgent issue of passes to our employees and workers, at the risk, if such a provision is not made at once, of causing grave and irreversible damage to our industrial and commercial activities, with the subsequent, inevitable harm this would cause to the national economy as a whole. On the afternoon of that same day, a joint communiqué from the ministries of defense, the interior and finance, expressed the national government's understanding and sympathy for the employers' legitimate concerns, but explained that any such distribution of passes could never be carried out on the scale desired by businesses, moreover, such liberality on the part of the government would inevitably imperil the security and efficacy of the military units charged with guarding the new frontier around the capital. However, as a demonstration of their openness and readiness to avoid the very worst problems, the government was prepared to give such documents to any managers and technical teams who were judged to be vital to the regular running of the companies, who would then have to take full responsibility for the actions, criminal or otherwise, inside and outside the city, of the people chosen to benefit from this privilege. Assuming the plan was approved, these people would have to gather each workday morning at designated places in order to be transported in buses under police escort to the city's various exit points, where more buses would take them to the factories or other premises where they worked and whence they would have to return at the end of the day. The cost of these operations, from the hiring of buses to the remuneration paid to the police for providing the escorts, would have to be covered by the companies themselves, an outlay that might well be made tax-deductible, although a firm decision on this could only be taken after a feasibility study had been carried out by the ministry of finance. As you can imagine, the complaints did not stop there. It is a basic fact of life that people cannot live without food and drink, now, bearing in mind that the meat came from outside, that the fish came from outside, that the vegetables came from outside, that, everything, in short, came from outside, and that what this city could, on its own, produce or store away would not provide enough even for one week, it would be necessary to lay on supply systems very like those that would provide businesses with technicians and managers, only far more complex, given the perishable nature of certain products. Not to mention the hospitals and the pharmacies, the kilometers of ligatures, the mountains of cotton wool, the tons of pills, the hectoliters of injectable fluids, the many gross of condoms. And then there's the petrol and the diesel to think about, how to transport them to the service stations, unless someone in the government has had the machiavellian idea of punishing the inhabitants of the capital twice over by making them walk. It took only a few days for the government to realize that there is more to a state of siege than meets the eye, especially if there is no real intention of starving the besieged population to death as was the usual practice in the distant past, that a state of siege is not something that can be cobbled together in a moment, that you need to know exactly what your objectives are and how to achieve them, to weigh the consequences, to evaluate reactions, ponder the problems, calculate the gains and the losses, if only to avoid the vast mountain of work that suddenly faces the ministries, overwhelmed by an unstoppable flood of protests, complaints and requests for clarification, for almost none of which they can provide answers, because the instructions from on high had looked only at the general principles of the state of siege and had shown a complete disregard for the bureaucratic minutiae of its implementation, which is where chaos invariably finds a way in. One interesting aspect of the situation, which the satirical vein and sardonic eye of the capital's wits could not help but notice, was the fact that the government, the de facto and de jure besieger, was, at the same time, one of the besieged, not just because its chambers and antechambers, its offices and corridors, its departments and archives, its filing cabinets and stamps, were all in the very heart of the city, and, indeed, formed an organic part of it, but also because some of its members, at least three ministers, a few secretaries of state and under-secretaries, as well as a couple of directors-general, lived on the outskirts, not to mention the civil servants who, morning and evening, in one way or another, had to use the train, metro or bus if they did not have their own transport or did not want to submit themselves to the complexities of urban traffic. The stories that were told, not always sotto voce, explored the well-known theme of the hunter hunted or the biter bit, but did not restrict themselves to such childishly innocent comments, to the humor of a belle époque kindergarten, there was a whole kaleidoscope of variations, some of them utterly obscene and, from the point of view of the most elementary good taste, reprehensibly scatological. Unfortunately, and here we have further proof of the limited range and structural weakness of all sarcastic remarks, lampoons, burlesques, parodies, satires and other such jokes with which people hope to wound a government, the state of siege was not lifted and the problems of supply remained unresolved.