This is already the tenth time since March 2020 that the National Assembly is considering a text related to the health crisis. So this time around, the “health vigilance” bill plans to release the schedule a little. The idea is to extend certain provisions such as the health pass for eight months, giving an appointment after the presidential election and the legislative elections.
What make the opposition scream. “We cannot sit down on democracy”, criticizes Pierre Dharréville, Communist spokesperson. For his part, President LR of the Senate Gérard Larcher refuses to “give a blank check” to the executive over such a period. Even within LREM, some deputies opposed to the pass like Pacôme Rupin try to limit the text.
Over 380 amendments
More than 380 amendments were tabled for this first reading, including a majority on the contentious article 2. Left and right are calling for a review clause while a simple assessment, which can evolve into a debate, is scheduled for mid-February. But the government, which fears an epidemic turnaround, wants to avoid seeing the presidential campaign polluted by a trial of unpreparedness.
To pass the pill, Gabriel Attal presented the text and its various provisions as a “toolbox” in which the executive would not be obliged to draw if the situation improves. But some believe that “the exceptional has become the norm” and denounce a government “addicted” to exceptional regimes. Charles de Courson recalls that since the Charlie Hebdo attacks in 2015, France has lived three years under a state of emergency.
Without agreement on the text, which will be the subject of a parliamentary shuttle until early November, the oppositions should seize the Constitutional Council. In the street, the demonstrations against the health pass are running out of steam, the Interior Ministry counting only 40,000 demonstrators on Saturday. But with the end of free testing, the last vaccine-resistant seem even more determined.