France: thousands of people demonstrate against the health passport for the fourth consecutive week

For the fourth consecutive weekend, Opponents of COVID-19 control measures in France, such as the health pass and compulsory vaccination for health workers, demonstrated in dozens of cities across the country.

For this Saturday, they had been summoned protests in more than 150 cities, marches that coincided with a new message from President Emmanuel Macron: “get vaccinated”, just when the number of French people having received at least one dose reached 44 million (nearly 66% of the population).

On Thursday, the Constitutional Court ratified the measure, adopted in July by the law, which provides for the the extension of the use of the health pass to more public spaces, and establishes the obligation for health personnel to be vaccinated.

The organization, which ensures respect for the Magna Carta, estimated that This certificate represents a “balanced reconciliation” between public freedoms and health protection.

Thus, from Monday, it will be necessary to present a a vaccination certificate, negative PCR test or disease cure certificate to access cafes and restaurants, show rooms and trade fairs, or to perform a long journey by plane, train or bus.

The authorities took this decision in order to encourage the population to be vaccinated, because, they stress, the number of emergency room hospitalizations and daily deaths from covid-19 is on the rise again.

The Ministry of the Interior considered that participation in at least 204,000 people as of July 31 (They were 161,000 a week earlier). “We expect more or less the same number of demonstrators” Saturday, predicted a police source.

“Macron, I don’t want your (sanitary) pass” O “Macron, we don’t even want to see you” were some of the slogans heard in Paris, where at least a thousand people, watched by a police device, gathered to protest. Among them, many “yellow vests”.

A good part of the demonstrators, Some vaccinated people see in this imposition of the health pass a “camouflaged obligation to be vaccinated” and “a control society”, and fear that employers will temporarily suspend the contract of a worker if he does not have the pass. rule.

However, in the same decision of the Constitutional Council in which the scope of the health passport was widened, I know He vetoed the possibility of temporary dismissal of people who do not have this receipt. The Employees can be suspended from their work, without pay, if they do not have a certificate when the nature of their work requires it.

“Although I will have no other choice, I will boycott all companies that ask for it. I am a designer, I go to fairs and markets and there will be certain activities that I cannot do. It will be complicated financially, but I accept to take this risk, ”explained Marie, participant in a Parisian demonstration.

There are also those who refuse to be used “as guinea pigs” – in his words – new vaccines.

Meanwhile, in the town of Cambrai, where a hundred demonstrators gathered, some businesses were closed in protest against the health pass.

Last week they lived, in a few steps, clashes with the police and the media were insulted. Law enforcement officers made 35 arrests and seven police officers were injured, although the day generally passed without notable incidents.

“We are responsible citizens, resolutely committed to defending our fundamental rights and freedoms. We are irreproachable, we are united and without political labels, ”said today the coordinator of one of the Parisian processions, Sophie Tissier, of the Paris pour la Liberté collective.

Another of the mobilizations in the capital was again led by the far right Florian Philippot, former right-hand man of Marine Le Pen, excluded from his party, the National Group, and who criticized on Twitter that the president, Emmanuel Macron, exercise only “out of fear and lies”.

“The government has said one thing from the start and the opposite. There is no basis and no logic“, Also criticized Marie, for whom the obligatory nature of the mask abroad was” the beginning of the end “.

In Montpellier, demonstrators insulted a pharmacist who was testing for COVID-19 in their establishment, treating him as “Collaborator” (as those who helped the Nazi regime in France were called) and “murderer”.

(With information from AFP and EFE)

KEEP READING:

After obtaining the support of the Constitutional Council, France will broaden the scope of the health passport +