The Senate adopts a revised version of the health vigilance bill – archyworldys

After twenty months of health crisis, the Senate now knows its score by heart and intends to play it to the end. The majority of the right and the center had its revised version of the health vigilance bill adopted on the night of October 28 to 29. By 158 votes to 106, the elected representatives of the Luxembourg Palace expressed their deep disagreement with the executive and the presidential majority in the National Assembly. “We propose that the sanitary pass be put on the verge of extinction”, supported Senator Les Républicains (LR) de la Manche and rapporteur for the text, Philippe Bas.

At the beginning of the week, the government text adopted by the National Assembly had been largely reworked in the Senate Law Committee, on the initiative of Mr. Bas. Three important changes – which act as red lines for the presidential majority – had been retained: the possibility of using the health pass and the end of the state of emergency set until February 28 instead of July 31, 2022, l ‘territorialized application of the pass according to a vaccination rate of 75% of the general population by department, and the removal of the amendment aimed at authorizing school directors to access the vaccination status of their students to facilitate the application of the protocol health of national education.

“We are entering a period of tensioning our health system”, opposed the Minister for Autonomy, Brigitte Bourguignon, present on the bench in place of the Minister of Health, Olivier Véran. The government spokesman, Gabriel Attal, confirmed, Wednesday October 27 at the exit of the Council of Ministers, “A light but sensitive recovery” of the epidemic, with 5,400 cases recorded per day on average, while remaining optimistic, with nearly 51 million French people first-vaccinated. The situation remains critical in the overseas territories, where the vaccination rate is well below the metropolitan average. In Guyana, the state of emergency is thus extended until December 31, and it should also be for Martinique in the event of the adoption of this eleventh bill presented to Parliament since the start of the health crisis.

Two irreconcilable philosophies

A new opportunity for the Senate to maintain its struggle for influence against the executive “In the name of public freedoms” and the prerogatives of Parliament. “From now on, the rule must be freedom, and constraint the exception”, defended the leader of LR senators, Bruno Retailleau. The parliamentary shuttle once again exposes two philosophies which, depending on the epidemic waves, prove to be irreconcilable. “What we are discussing here is the preservation of the rule of law, we want legal arguments, not health arguments”, scolded the Communist Senator from Hauts-de-Seine Pierre Ouzoulias.

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