Three days and nights have been necessary for the National Assembly to give its support this past morning to the bill to impose the vaccination passport in France, where the Government maintains its will to complicate the day to day of the unvaccinated.
With 214 votes in favor, 93 against and 27 abstentions, the text went ahead after five in the morning, local time, after the prime minister, Jean Castex, participated in the session to try to calm things down.
“It is the right thing, not only for the government, but for the country, the French and the fight against the pandemic,” Castex said hours later in an interview on BFM TV.
The Executive trusts that the passport will come into force around January 15, as announced at first, but it is no longer in their hands: the text will now go to the Senate, before returning to the Assembly for ratification and being studied by the Council of State.
The introduction of the bill in the life of the French will mean that, in order to access bars, restaurants, cultural centers and other public places, everyone over 12 years of age must present their vaccination certificate with the full schedule -reminder dose included for those who have the second at least four months before.
Only hospitals are exempt, where, as before, a negative test can be shown to enter, as long as it is not an emergency.
The bill consisted of three articles, but the deputies presented more than 650 amendments, which also explains why the debate took so long.
Throughout the afternoon of Wednesday and until three in the morning, the representatives’ discussions focused on the merits and the concerns that the text arouses, especially the identity control in case of suspected fraud.
What are the well-founded reasons why the person in charge of a premises could carry out an identity check if he believes that the vaccination passport is false?
Finally, the Republican caucus (which was divided by voting for and against the project) has decided to go to the Constitutional Council so that this body that ensures respect for the Magna Carta can rule on this issue, which will surely further delay its start up.
Campaign against the unvaccinated
In the background, the electoralist tone has already been introduced in the speech of the majority of the party leaders and candidates for the presidential election, including the president, Emmanuel Macron, who for many has already started his campaign although he has not yet confirmed his participation in the April elections.
“I want to annoy the unvaccinated. And we will continue to do so, until the end. That is the strategy,” Macron said in controversial statements to the newspaper Le Parisien, which led to the adjournment of the session in the National Assembly on Tuesday , again delaying the vote.
The day before, the opposition had taken advantage of the fact that, in a miscalculation, the majority deputies were not in their total to vote in favor of suspending the debate.
Castex, head of government, defended his president today for saying “what many French say in a low voice”.
For the prime minister, the new law, which will also make it possible to tighten the penalties for those who use false certificates with fines from 1,000 euros to prison, is a way to push the most reluctant to get vaccinated without fully forcing them.
“The sanction in case of not being vaccinated would be a fine, and the objective is to vaccinate, not to deposit money. In addition, we would have much more difficulties to control this obligation, the vaccination passport is much more effective,” insisted Castex.
In recent weeks, there has been a new increase in the data of first vaccinated, which had stagnated. This Wednesday 70,000 first doses were injected, which brought to about 53 million the number of French people who already have at least one.
The positives continue to skyrocket: the country yesterday registered a new record with 332,252 cases in 24 hours, and the peak of hospitalizations (20,688 at present) is expected to arrive at the end of January or the beginning of February. (I)
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