French doctors demand protection from death threats at work

French doctors and scientists are calling on authorities to take action against the insults and threats — including death threats — that many have received during the coronavirus pandemic

PARIS -- French doctors and scientists on Tuesday called on authorities to take action against the insults and threats— including death threats — that they have frequently received during the coronavirus pandemic. The doctors said they fear that someone from the world of conspiracy theories will take action, not just against them but against other medical professionals, and condemned the silence of authorities. “It’s months that some of us are receiving, regularly, death threats. Be it via social networks … Twitter, email, by telephone, or by the post. We are targets,” said Jerome Marty, a physician who heads a union for doctors in private practice, UFMLS. Some doctors like himself receive threats “several times a day,” he said, and some now have bodyguards.