The Limits of Humanitarianism: Decolonization, the French Red Cross, and the Algerian War

2020 ◽  
pp. 79-108
Author(s):  
Jennifer Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Red Cross ◽  
Algerian War ◽  
French Red Cross

scholarly journals Evaluating the motivation of Red Cross Health volunteers in the COVID-19 pandemic: a mixed-methods study protocol

BMJ Open ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. e042579
Author(s):  
Leonardo W Heyerdahl ◽  
Muriel Vray ◽  
Vincent Leger ◽  
Lénaig Le Fouler ◽  
Julien Antouly ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Mixed Methods ◽  
Vulnerable Populations ◽  
Health Workers ◽  
Mixed Methods Study ◽  
Red Cross ◽  
Volunteer Motivation ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Current Crisis ◽  
French Red Cross

IntroductionVoluntary organisations provide essential support to vulnerable populations and front-line health responders to the COVID-19 pandemic. The French Red Cross (FRC) is prominent among organisations offering health and support services in the current crisis. Comprised primarily of lay volunteers and some trained health workers, FRC volunteers in the Paris (France) region have faced challenges in adapting to pandemic conditions, working with sick and vulnerable populations, managing limited resources and coping with high demand for their services. Existing studies of volunteers focus on individual, social and organisational determinants of motivation, but attend less to contextual ones. Public health incertitude about the COVID-19 pandemic is an important feature of this pandemic. Whether and how uncertainty interacts with volunteer understandings and experiences of their work and organisational relations to contribute to Red Cross worker motivation is the focus of this investigation.Methods and analysisThis mixed-methods study will investigate volunteer motivation using ethnographic methods and social network listening. Semi-structured interviews and observations will illuminate FRC volunteer work relations, experiences and concerns during the pandemic. A questionnaire targeting a sample of Paris region volunteers will allow quantification of motivation. These findings will iteratively shape and be influenced by a social media (Twitter) analysis of biomedical and public health uncertainties and debates around COVID-19. These tweets provide insight into a French lay public’s interpretations of these debates. We evaluate whether and how socio-political conditions and discourses concerning COVID-19 interact with volunteer experiences, working conditions and organisational relations to influence volunteer motivation. Data collection began on 15 June 2020 and will continue until 15 April 2021.Ethics and disseminationThe protocol has received ethical approval from the Institut Pasteur Institutional Review Board (no 2020-03). We will disseminate findings through peer-reviewed articles, conference presentations and recommendations to the FRC.

The International Committee in Algeria

1962 ◽  
Vol 2 (16) ◽  
pp. 362-365 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
International Committee ◽  
Surgical Instruments ◽  
The Other ◽  
Red Cross ◽  
Medical Team ◽  
Powdered Milk ◽  
New Born ◽  
Concentrated Milk ◽  
French Red Cross

The ICRC actively developed its relief operation in Algeria in June. Acute medical and sanitary problems are facing its delegates, especially in Oran. As reported earlier the ICRC has sent a medical team of three to the Moslem city of Oran, where medicines, surgical instruments and equipment, and dietetic milk for new-born children, are most urgently needed. Following urgent requests by its delegates on the spot the ICRC immediately despatched by air two tons of dietetic powdered milk: Two further shipments were also sent by the French Red Cross, one of eight crates of sugared concentrated milk, the other of one and a half tons of standardised milk.

scholarly journals First Red Cross Meeting in the South-West Region of the Indian Ocean

1984 ◽  
Vol 24 (242) ◽  
pp. 302-303
Keyword(s):  
Disaster Preparedness ◽  
Central Africa ◽  
Vice President ◽  
Red Cross ◽  
West Region ◽  
West And Central Africa ◽  
The Indian Ocean ◽  
French Red Cross ◽  
National Director ◽  
First Time

Leaders of the Red Cross Societies of Madagascar and Mauritius, of the French Red Cross in Réunion, of the Seychelles Red Cross Committee and of the Comoros Red Crescent Committee met for the first time, from 14 to 18 May 1984, at Saint-Denis de la Réunion. The French Red Cross was represented by Mr. M. Bocquet, Vice-President of the French National Red Cross, and Miss E. Bourel, National Director for the departmental branches; the League had delegated Mr. Cassaigneau, head of the “West and Central Africa” desk in Geneva, who was accompanied by Mr. E. Ekué, programme officer, and Mr. R. Carrillo, disaster preparedness programme officer; the ICRC had dispatched Mrs. J. Egger, head of the co-operation service, and Mr. L. Isler, of the ICRC regional delegation at Nairobi, also took part in the meeting.

scholarly journals The Impact of the Online COVID-19 Infodemic on French Red Cross Actors’ Field Engagement and Protective Behaviors: Mixed Methods Study

10.2196/27472 ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. e27472
Author(s):  
Leonardo W Heyerdahl ◽  
Benedetta Lana ◽  
Tamara Giles-Vernick
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Health Workers ◽  
Hybrid Approach ◽  
Red Cross ◽  
Protective Behaviors ◽  
Traditional Media ◽  
French Red Cross ◽  
And Behavior ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Tuning Out

Background The COVID-19 pandemic has been widely described as an infodemic, an excess of rapidly circulating information in social and traditional media in which some information may be erroneous, contradictory, or inaccurate. One key theme cutting across many infodemic analyses is that it stymies users’ capacities to identify appropriate information and guidelines, encourages them to take inappropriate or even harmful actions, and should be managed through multiple transdisciplinary approaches. Yet, investigations demonstrating how the COVID-19 information ecosystem influences complex public decision making and behavior offline are relatively few. Objective The aim of this study was to investigate whether information reported through the social media channel Twitter, linked articles and websites, and selected traditional media affected the risk perception, engagement in field activities, and protective behaviors of French Red Cross (FRC) volunteers and health workers in the Paris region of France from June to October 2020. Methods We used a hybrid approach that blended online and offline data. We tracked daily Twitter discussions and selected traditional media in France for 7 months, qualitatively evaluating COVID-19 claims and debates about nonpharmaceutical protective measures. We conducted 24 semistructured interviews with FRC workers and volunteers. Results Social and traditional media debates about viral risks and nonpharmaceutical interventions fanned anxieties among FRC volunteers and workers. Decisions to continue conducting FRC field activities and daily protective practices were also influenced by other factors unrelated to the infodemic: familial and social obligations, gender expectations, financial pressures, FRC rules and communications, state regulations, and relationships with coworkers. Some respondents developed strategies for “tuning out” social and traditional media. Conclusions This study suggests that during the COVID-19 pandemic, the information ecosystem may be just one among multiple influences on one group’s offline perceptions and behavior. Measures to address users who have disengaged from online sources of health information and who rely on social relationships to obtain information are needed. Tuning out can potentially lead to less informed decision making, leading to worse health outcomes.

French Red Cross Volunteer Rescue Workers

2020 ◽  
Vol 208 (5) ◽  
pp. 413-417
Author(s):  
Julie Meudal ◽  
Stéphanie Vandentorren ◽  
Laurent Simeoni ◽  
Céline Denis
Keyword(s):  
Red Cross ◽  
Rescue Workers ◽  
French Red Cross

Between insurgents and government: the International Committee of the Red Cross's action in the Algerian War (1954–1962)

2011 ◽  
Vol 93 (883) ◽  
pp. 707-742 ◽  
Author(s):  
Françoise Perret ◽  
François Bugnion
Keyword(s):  
International Committee ◽  
Terrorist Attacks ◽  
Red Cross ◽  
Algerian War ◽  
National Liberation ◽  
French Government ◽  
Humanitarian Action ◽  
Asymmetric Warfare ◽  
National Liberation Front ◽  
Police Action

AbstractThe French government and an armed insurrectionary movement – the National Liberation Front (FLN) – confronted each other for over seven years in the Algerian War, which would become the archetype of wars of national liberation. It brought the new conditions of struggle in revolutionary warfare to a convulsive climax characterized by terrorist attacks, underground warfare, and repression. On the humanitarian front, the challenge of ensuring respect for humanitarian rules in asymmetric warfare was posed more bluntly than in any previous conflict. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) faced the triple challenge of offering its services to a government facing an armed insurgency that it claimed to be able to bring under control through police action alone, of entering into contact with a liberation movement, and of conducting a humanitarian action in the context of an insurrectionary war.

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