Extension of the health pass: the Senate votes a profoundly revised text

Published on : 10/29/2021 – 09:11Modified : 10/29/2021 – 09:14

The Senate, dominated by the right-wing opposition, engaged on Thursday, October 28, a showdown with the government by reducing from July 31 to February 28 the extension of the braking measures against the Covid-19 epidemic and by providing a territorialized exit from the sanitary pass.

The bill on “various provisions for health vigilance”, very largely revised by the senators, was voted on at first reading by 158 votes in favor (the majority of the LR and centrist groups) and 106 against. The Socialists abstained. Voted against, in addition to the majority RDPI groups En Marche, CRCE with a communist and environmentalist majority, 21 LR senators, 11 centrists and the majority of the RDSE groups with a radical majority and Independents.

For the leader of senators LR Bruno Retailleau, the modified text “bears the mark of the Senate”, both “guardian of public freedoms” and “concerned about the balance of power”. “The time has come for relaxation,” he added.

Deputies and senators will try to agree next week on a common version in a joint committee, a challenge as the positions have diverged. In the event of failure, the National Assembly will have the last word.

The government “is determined to retain the month of July 2022 as the horizon,” Minister Brigitte Bourguignon said at the start of the debates.

Refusing to give “a blank check”, the senators reduced the deadline from July 31 to February 28, date of suspension of parliamentary work before the electoral deadlines.

A pass limited to certain departments

LR reporter Philippe Bas considers that “three and a half months is fine, eight and a half months is too much”. It is up to the government to return to Parliament to continue beyond, if the health situation so requires. The centrist Nathalie Goulet considered the date of February 28 “reasonable”, refusing to “play Russian roulette” by giving “full powers” to a new president not yet elected.

“We know very well, from now on, that we will have to live with the virus at least until the summer”, argued without convincing Brigitte Bourguignon, stressing that the winter period will be “conducive to a worsening of the situation “.

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At the end of a heated debate in the hemicycle, coupled with backstage meetings between the LR and PS groups, an amendment was adopted by Marie-Pierre de La Gontrie (PS), completed by Jérôme Bascher (LR).

The “compromise” thus obtained, but to which the government does not subscribe, aims to territorialize the use of the health pass from November 15. It would be limited to departments that have not reached a vaccination rate of 80% of the eligible population and in which an active circulation of the virus is observed. This rate of 80% will be reached on November 15 in all metropolitan departments, according to Marie-Pierre de La Gontrie.

>> To read: “I bought a fake health pass … and then I caught the Covid-19”

The imposition of the health pass would nevertheless remain possible to access establishments welcoming vulnerable people in all the departments. On the other hand, the Senate rejected the amendments aimed at the outright abolition of the health pass.

“Not a tool of constraint, but of freedom”

The Minister of Health, Olivier Véran, believes he does not have “sufficient hindsight at this stage” to “deprive himself of a tool that is functional” and “very well accepted by people”.

The president of the group Indépendants Claude Malhuret supported this position, affirming that it “is not a tool of constraint, but of freedom”.

As everywhere in Europe, the epidemic is experiencing a rebound in France at the start of the cold season. Government spokesman Gabriel Attal confirmed Wednesday “a slight but sensitive recovery”, with 5,400 cases detected per day on average, while estimating that France could hope for “a relatively calm winter” thanks to its vaccination rate.

>> To see: Health pass: Europe at several speeds

Invoking medical secrecy, the senators again removed the controversial provision allowing school directors to know the vaccination status of students.

Among the amendments adopted in the hemicycle, the Senate voted, at the initiative of the CRCE group with a communist majority, a request for a report on “the consequences of the closures of hospital beds”, a subject on which the Scientific Council recently alert.

The CRCE and environmental groups are firmly opposed to a text which, “even more measured” when it leaves the Senate, “favors a security approach to crisis management,” according to the president of the CRCE group Eliane Assassi.

With AFP