“It’s a new speed race that is underway. Emmanuel Macron put pressure on the unvaccinated during his speech on Monday evening, by imposing the health pass at the entrance of most public places and by making vaccination compulsory for caregivers and people in contact with the most fragile. “The more we vaccinate, the less space we will leave for the virus”, justified the Head of State, while the Delta variant of Covid-19 is spreading in the country. But are these restrictive measures, announced in the middle of summer, politically risky ten months before the presidential election?
The opposition denounces a “serious decline in individual freedoms”
“The fourth wave has already started […]. The vaccine is our trump card. This is what allows us to live as normally as possible, we cannot do without it, ”explained Gabriel Attal, the government spokesman, on Tuesday. An argument taken up in the majority, like Bruno Bonnell. “For many technical reasons, we cannot make vaccination compulsory, but we strongly encourage it because we are at war against the Covid. We left for many years, with perhaps other variants. Emmanuel Macron was right to switch to an offensive strategy, ”says LREM deputy from Rhône.
These restrictive measures have, however, been criticized by part of the opposition. “A sanitary pass to go to a shopping center, that is to say a sanitary pass to eat? Do we realize what this means in terms of public freedoms? But in which society does Mr. Macron tip France? », Indignant the spokesman of the Republicans, Gilles Platret.
The rebellious deputy Eric Coquerel denounced “a form of progressive generalization of the health pass [et] a society of generalized control and discrimination “, while Marine Le Pen, for her part, lambasted a” serious decline in individual freedoms “.
A turnaround justified for the majority
Part of the opposition also criticized Emmanuel Macron for having put in place measures that he refused a few weeks earlier. On April 29, the president thus assured, during an interview with the regional press, that “the health pass will never be a right of access which differentiates the French. It could not be compulsory to access places of everyday life such as restaurants, theaters and cinemas, ”he said, limiting its use to stadiums, festivals, fairs or exhibitions.
Monday’s announcements therefore sign a turnaround, but a justified turnaround, according to Bruno Bonnell. “We don’t sail by sight, it’s adaptation because the epidemic situation has changed and, at the time, we did not have as many vaccines. Emmanuel Macron chose a mixture of authority and pragmatism to save the economy. It’s the carrot and stick strategy. The deprivations will apply to those who do not wish to be vaccinated ”. But for what impact in public opinion?
The French would support the president’s choices
In the wake of the announcements, 926,000 French people made a vaccination appointment on the Doctolib platform and more than 3.4 million searches were carried out on Monday on the specialized site Vite Ma Dose. “The French were perhaps waiting for this little pressure and the requests for meetings in the coming days will be the demonstration that everyone is aware that the solution is the vaccine”, justified this Tuesday on
RTL, the president of the walkers in the Assembly, Christophe Castaner.
At the same time, many criticisms, sometimes very sharp, were raised on social networks. But from a political point of view, the president does not seem to take great risks. According to an Elabe poll published on Tuesday, 66% of French people would be in favor of extending the health pass for places of leisure and cultures bringing together more than 50 people, and 58% for accessing cafes, restaurants, and shopping centers. Above all, the president solidifies his base, since he would be largely supported by the Macronist electorate on these two measures (at 86 and 82%), just like on the right (at 73 and 68%).