Towards a “vaccination certificate” to go to the theater or restaurant? Watch out!

Will a coronavirus “vaccination certificate” soon be mandatory to attend certain public places? Several viral publications feature a quote from journalist and columnist Christophe Barbier as a sensational scoop, which has sparked the ire of many Internet users on social networks.

According to a visual seen more than 400,000 times since its release on November 14, the former editorial director of The Express would have declared: “If you are not vaccinated you will not be able to go to the restaurant, to the theater, or to take the plane … You will need to have a vaccination certificate as a card to be in company.

In a news favorable to the fantasies, even if the state of health emergency has been extended until February 16 – and more and more laboratories announce that they have developed a vaccine against Covid-19 – it is good to give some context to these comments.

FALSE

If these words were spoken by Christophe Barbier in an “editorial video” posted on his Twitter account on Tuesday 10 November, they are only a reflection of his thinking. Therefore they are not based on any government sources or confidential information that the reporter would have had access to. The former editor of L ‘To express it commits it only when it proposes to establish a “vaccination certificate” to be taken to certain public places.

Should we make vaccination against Covid mandatory? Let’s be smarter than brutal! My editorial video of the day. pic.twitter.com/UWWJVj6Xqk

– Christophe Barbier (@C_Barbier) November 10, 2020

But can we really limit the freedom of those who do not wish to be vaccinated? If the refusal of vaccination still exposed, a few years ago, to six months in prison and a fine of 3,750 euros, this sanction foreseen by the Public Health Code was abolished by Agnès Buzyn shortly after her arrival at the Ministry of Health in 2017.

In 2015, the Constitutional Council recognized the obligation to vaccinate children as complying with the “constitutional requirement of health protection”. Therefore, lack of vaccination can cause a daycare or school to refuse a child if they have not received one of the eleven mandatory vaccines. And criminal penalties remain in place for parents who compromise the health of their children. But proof of vaccination is not required to attend a theater or restaurant.

Towards a mandatory vaccine?

However, many politicians are calling for the establishment of a mandatory vaccine against Covid-19, such as MEP Yannick Jadot (Europe Ecologie-Les Verts) or the president of the Ile-de-France region, Valérie Pécresse (formerly Les Républicains), on Monday morning on BFMTV.

This idea is far from unanimous. For the president of the national gathering, Marine Le Pen, every Frenchman should have the choice in his “heart of the heart”. When asked about France 3, Julien Bayou, national secretary of EELV, feared that the mandatory nature of the vaccine “would reduce the desire to be vaccinated” in the population.

However, a vaccination obligation remains very hypothetical for the moment. The High Authority for Health estimated last week that, “in the current context, vaccination against Covid-19 should not be mandatory” due to “a little-known vaccine administration schedule and lack of perspective on the future. vaccines, as well as their ability to limit the contagion of the virus “.

Caution is required in the government

For its part, the government has not explicitly addressed the issue of mandatory vaccination. Gabriel Attal, the government spokesman, estimated last week that “it is very early to say (…) the conditions under which we will distribute a vaccine even if no vaccine has been definitively validated”. A caution shared by Olivier Véran in an interview with the regional newspapers of the Jewish group published on Monday: “The vaccination campaign will not start until we have all the guarantees to vaccinate the population safely”, assured the Minister of Health.

“My fear is that the French aren’t getting enough vaccinations,” said Jean Castex al World this weekend. According to the newspaper, the premier’s entourage would be reluctant to make vaccination against Covid-19 mandatory. If such a decision were made, the government and parliament would still have to pass a law, as in 2017 when the list of mandatory vaccines was increased from three to eleven.