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The French government has been forced to postpone plans that could see unvaccinated people banned from public places during health crises, following vocal opposition.
The text was proposed Monday to create a framework for future health emergencies. It would give the prime minister exceptional powers to restrict access to public transport and other public spaces for people who cannot present a negative test result, or proof of vaccination or treatment, for an infectious disease.
But after a day of controversy around the plans, French Health Minister Olivier Véran went on the evening news Tuesday to defuse the controversy and postpone the bill.
“Because there needs to be trust for the French people to go and get vaccinated of their own free will, because we’re still in a state of sanitary crisis … the government won’t present the text [to the National Assembly] for several months, before we’re out of the crisis,” Véran told TF1.
The bill was poorly received in one of the most vaccine-hesitant countries in the world. Opposition figures from across the political spectrum — and from both pro-vaccine and vaccine-skeptic camps — riled against a plan that conservative MP Fabien Di Filippo said amounted to “vaccine blackmail.”
There were also concerns it could add fuel to the anti-vaccine movement just days before the start of the COVID-19 vaccination campaign in France and across Europe. It was originally slated to be debated by the National Assembly in January.
The government, in its impact study released Monday, said the measures around vaccination were not “meant to impose mandatory vaccination against COVID-19” but could be needed for a future pandemic.
However, nothing in the bill itself specifies this nuance.
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