As France is faced with deteriorating indicators, President Emmanuel Macron spoke with his European peers during a remote meeting. EU leaders have addressed the current situation and what is to come as for likely recovery. They raised the idea of the famous European vaccination certificate in order to “reorganize inter-state movement more fluidly”. “However, it is not yet clear whether vaccinated people can still transmit the virus to others” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said.
As for Macron, he said during a press brief held after the meeting that “such document could not grand special rights to people vaccinated”. “I would not accept a system where the access to such or such country depends on such certificate” as “our young have not been vaccinated yet”, he added.
An opinion shared by Minister of Culture. This past February 10, Roselyne Bachelot said she was against instating a vaccine passport yet approved by most French. “I remain against the vaccine passport that seems to me harms one’s freedom. The lover of liberties I am cannot think about it! If we were to make it to this point, it would be like going back” she claimed.
Yet, the French president spoke about instating a “health pass” with the aim of reopening cultural places and restaurants.
Instating this “health pass” “will raise a lot of technical questions, respect for individual data, organization of our freedoms”. To do so “we must therefore prepare now technically, politically, legally the subject”, Macron explained this February 25.
“I feel that there is a lot of confusion sometimes on this subject” he said, adding this “health pass” “will not be only linked to vaccination” because “if we manage to reopen certain places, we could not condition their access to vaccination, even though we would not have even opened vaccination to the youngest. […] We must prevent each country from developing its own system” and for that “work towards a common medical certification”, the President concluded.
In order to move on on that matter, a meeting with the government members is to be held next week.
