The French Prime Minister, Jean Castex, announced this Thursday evening that the vaccine pass would come into effect next Monday. The obligation to work from home for 3 to 4 days will be lifted on February 2, as well as the gauges for major sporting and cultural events. Nightclubs will be able to reopen on February 16. The vaccination recall will be open for 12-17 year olds this Monday.
While doubts were beginning to be expressed about the management of the health crisis, the executive had to take control of the file to explain, appease but also counter-attack.
With less than three months to go before the presidential election, after the mess of protocols in schools, the executive deemed it urgent to present perspectives to the French on the epidemic, especially at a time when other countries, such as the United Kingdom, are loosening their stranglehold. Emmanuel Macron no doubt hopes that this will give us a glimpse of “happy days”. Even if this means first of all going through… an extension of the measures initially taken for three weeks.
Once again, it was the Prime Minister, Jean Castex, who went to the front on Thursday, January 20, after a health defense council. The evolution of the pandemic, with the spectacular arrival of the Omicron variant, more contagious but less dangerous, has raised doubts and questions about the benefits of testing and vaccination, he conceded. What’s the point of getting vaccinated if you can still get infected and pass the virus on to your neighbor? Why get tested if the symptoms are less worrying? Some countries, like Spain, are considering treating the coronavirus like a common flu epidemic.
Two years after the outbreak of the pandemic, the tide may be turning. The management of the sanitary crisis, until now favorable to the head of the State, ends up weighing on the morale of the French and offers, three months before the presidential election, angles of attack for the opposition.
