After heated debates has the French National Assembly in the fight against the corona pandemic die Introduction of drastic restrictions for unvaccinated people approved. The regulations provide that unvaccinated people will no longer have access to places such as restaurants, cinemas or long-distance trains. Early on Thursday morning, the National Assembly adopted the bill at first reading. Now the Senate has to deal with the text. The National Assembly had previously interrupted the deliberations twice, thereby endangering the government’s tight schedule.
In view of the increasing corona numbers, the government wants to replace the so-called health pass, which so far provided proof of vaccination, current negative corona test or survived illness, with a new vaccination pass (“pass vaccinal”). A negative test should then no longer be enough. The government plans to finalize the status of those who have recovered at a later date. The rules should actually go into effect on January 15th. It is unclear whether this schedule can be adhered to in view of the delayed approval in the National Assembly.
The number of infections has risen sharply in France in the past few weeks. The omicron variant is now predominant. On Wednesday, the country peaked with more than 332,000 reported infections in one day. Most recently, the incidence value, i.e. the number of new infections per 100,000 people within a week, was around 1908 nationwide.