Justice cancels health pass in shopping centers in several departments

In front of the “Total confusion” surrounding the obligation of the health pass in certain shopping centers of more than 20,000 m², the National Council of Shopping Centers (CNCC) asked the government, Tuesday, August 31, to suspend the measure. The organization, which brings together 361 commercial real estate players, had already protested in July against the vote of the measure by the parliamentarians within the framework of the debates of the bill relating to the management of the health crisis.

Since then, the CNCC says it has observed “A drop of a quarter in attendance” shopping malls in August. The reluctance to have to present his health pass (complete vaccination schedule, negative virological test of less than seventy-two hours or certificate of recovery from Covid-19) would be, in part, to blame. The issue is all the more important as the start of the school year approaches as the employees of the stores concerned are submitted, since August 30, to the extent already imposed on visitors.

“Uncertainty is the enemy of confidence and consumption”, deplored the CNCC general delegate, Gontran Thüring, at Agence France-Presse. Left to the initiative of the prefectures, the measure is not in force in all departments and the application criteria may vary. A visible lack of harmonization in the judicial decisions taken in recent weeks: the orders were suspended in the Yvelines, the Haut-Rhin, the Hauts-de-Seine and Essone, but supported by the administrative courts in Haute-Garonne, in the Rhône and in Seine-Saint-Denis. Appeals have been filed in Val-d’Oise and Bouches-du-Rhône and a decision is expected in Paris after the holding, Tuesday, August 31, of a hearing in the presence of representatives of the prefecture.

At the district or shopping center level

Debates focus on a provision of the law asking that the compulsory health pass in large shopping centers cannot prevent “People’s access to essential goods and services, as well as, where appropriate, to means of transport”. If the second situation has been taken into account – in Hauts-de-Seine, for example, the center of Westfield Les 4 Temps (141,200 m²) is not subject to this measure since it gives access to the transport network in common Ile-de-France -, “The prefectures have not provided free access to essential products for people without a health pass”, affirms Tarek Koraitem, lawyer at the bar of Versailles in particular responsible for defending the actions brought by individuals in Yvelines, Essonne, Hauts-de-Seine and in Paris. “It would not be complicated to provide specific access to buy pasta in a food store in the gallery or medicines at the pharmacy”, he believes.

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