Vaccine passports for bars, restaurants, and public transport will become mandatory in France starting next month, President Emmanuel Macron announced in a national address on Monday evening.
Mr Macron said that it will be necessary to curtail the freedoms of the unvaccinated in France to supposedly slow the spread of the so-called Delta (Indian) variant of the Chinese coronavirus.
“Our choice is simple: to put the restrictions on the unvaccinated rather than on all. This is the meaning of the health pass that will be extended,” the French president announced.
The draconian restrictions will mean that citizens of France will either have to scan in via QR code or present a document proving that they have either been fully vaccinated or have recovered from the Wuhan virus to enter businesses such as restaurants, bars, cinemas, theatres, and shopping centres as well as to use public transport by early August.
Depending on the evolution of the situation, we will ask ourselves the question of the extension of the health pass to other activities,” Macron added.
Starting from July 21st, anyone over the age of 12 in France will have to present a “health pass” to attend concerts, festivals, shows, or to enter amusement parks.
Mr Macron has also announced that starting on September 15th, healthcare workers and volunteers at care homes will be required to be vaccinated. He said that vaccination is a “matter of individual responsibility… but also a matter of our freedom.”
Clarifying the position, French Health Minister Olivier Véran said that those healthcare workers who fail to get vaccinated by the September deadline “will no longer be able to work and will no longer be paid”.
(Macron: “Faites-vous vacciner”/”Get vaccinated”)
Alongside the other measures, curfews have been reinstated in the French territories of Martinique and Reunion Island.
The scare tactics of the speech may have achieved the government’s goal of increasing vaccinations, as the French online vaccination portal Doctolib.fr crashed as a result of increased search traffic following Macron’s speech.
The announcement from Macron came as British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was announcing that all legal lockdown restrictions would be lifted in England starting from next week.
In France, approximately 40 per cent of the adult population has been fully vaccinated against the coronavirus, with 53.1 per cent having had at least one jab. This is compared to around 60 per cent in the UK who have had two jabs and 87 per cent having had at least one dose of the vaccine.
While the UK and the U.S. have been pushing towards loosening restrictions, countries across the European continent have been increasingly implementing draconian health state regulations in order to force people into taking the vaccine.
In Greece, for example, the government announced last month that it would allow businesses to open fully as long as they only catered to people who have been vaccinated.
The discriminatory practice may extend to Italy, where the government is reportedly considering Chinese social credit-style restrictions on travel, forcing trains to give preferential treatment to the vaccinated.
The socialist government of Spain has also announced that it would be reimposing curfews in Catalonia and Valencia amid rising cases among younger people.
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