France: the imposition of the health pass has boosted vaccination and the image of Emmanuel Macron | Despite anti-vaccine marches

The imposition of the health pass in France has encouraged vaccination against the coronavirus and increased support for the government of Emmanuel Macron -which would come again next year-, despite the mobilizations of anti-vaccine groups.

Weeks after the French president announced the application and compulsory nature of the health pass, citizens have already made a habit of showing their certificate at the entrance of bars, gymnasiums, museums or even shopping centers.

“At the beginning I didn’t think it would work”, but “people understood it and it is relatively respected”, declared Djillali Annane, head of the intensive care unit of the Raymond-Poincaré hospital in Garches, located in Parisian region.

Despite criticism of the measure, deemed discriminatory by those who do not want to be vaccinated, In recent weeks, France has managed to accelerate its vaccination rate with the first doses and surpass the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom and Italy.

The Gallic country administered at least one dose to 72.3% of its population and, with Sweden and Finland, vaccinating at one of the highest rates in the European Union (EU): inoculates 0.6 percent of its population per day.

However, it still has failed to overtake Spain, Italy, Malta and Portugal, where there are already 80% of people with at least one dose of the covid-19 vaccine.

Macron’s image grows

Seven months before the presidential election, The polls showed that the implementation of the health pass benefited the image of Macron, who would be re-elected.

According to recent Elabe polls, between 64 and 77% of French people support the measure, and confidence in the government’s handling of the health crisis is at its highest level since the start of the pandemic.

For Bernard Sananes, director of Elabe, Macron “gives the impression of having gone through the crisis with difficult times, but without leaving room for an alternative, so that no one says: ‘Such a person would have done better.'”

The scarcity of chinstrap at the start of the pandemic and the initial slowness of the vaccination campaign briefly raised opponents of Macron, like his rival in the 2017 elections, the far-right Marine Le Pen.

Antivacunas

The implementation of the health pass provoked the anger of the anti-vaccine sectors which marched in the streets of France and at the end of July. At the time, the police repressed a massive demonstration in Paris with tear gas.

Some anti-vaccines, who demonstrate on Saturday to denounce “the dictatorship”, have even a yellow star was placed to compare with the persecution suffered by Jews during WWII. But this, in addition to being criticized by Holocaust survivors and part of the Jewish community, caused widespread rejection.

“For most people, taking out your cell phone at the entrance of a restaurant has become a habit. They did not follow the protesters on the ideological ground», Assured the director of the Elabe poll.

Still, Sananes warned that the opposition is “a minority, but it is not marginal”, because has support between 20 and 25 percent.

“We are at the mercy of a new variant”

With the start of the school year and the return to work after the summer vacation, doctors prepare for a possible increase in infections, which currently averages 17,000 daily cases.

“The vector of the epidemic will be the unvaccinated people”, specifies epidemiologist Catherine Hill, for whom among these nearly 20 million people “the virus can continue to circulate”.

Hill noted that regardless of short-term successes, “we are at the mercy of a new variant”.