“It is not acceptable that the refusal of a few million French people to get vaccinated puts the life of a whole country at risk.” This is how Jean Castex justified the transformation of the health pass into a vaccine pass on December 17th, as the Omicron variant, quietly, overtook Delta and was about to cause an explosion in Covid-19 cases.
By putting pressure on the unvaccinated, the government claims to seek to compel the 4.9 million French people over the age of 12 who have not made the leap.
It took nearly a month of bitter parliamentary debates, punctuated by session suspensions and a violent outburst from Emmanuel Macron against the unvaccinated, whom he wishes to “piss off” to the end, for the bill paving the way for the implementation of the vaccine pass to be definitively voted on in the Assembly, this Sunday, January 16th.
Certainly, every Saturday we witness “patriotic” parades against the “liberticidal law” by anti-vax groups opportunely infiltrated by extremist groups, the blogosphere spreads the most fanciful theories, and private and public threats are disseminated against pro-vaccine advocates. The election campaign is also a good platform for candidates to criticize government decisions, and the so-called experts seeking a moment of fame are fully engaged in debates and interviews.
In short, the confusion is total, leaving one to wonder what the real objective is: to return to normal life as quickly as possible while minimizing moral, material, and economic damage, or to turn everyday life into an arena for citizen battles?
Fortunately, if we look at the figures provided by the Ministry of Health, nearly 700,000 first doses have been recorded since the beginning of January.
It shows that while on one hand a refractory minority continues to loudly oppose, on the other hand, a large portion of the no-vax population has taken the step of accepting the vaccine. Perhaps, without telling their former friends…
