The French Parliament approves the COVID passport after two weeks of intense debate

The French National Assembly This Sunday definitively closed the approval of the bill that creates the vaccine passport, which will complicate the lives of those who have not been immunized, as President Emmanuel Macron had proposed.

The approval, by 215 votes in favor and 58 against, closes two weeks of intense parliamentary proceedings and several days of round-trip voting in the Assembly and in the Senate on different versions of the law until both chambers managed to close a text common.

The Government wants the law to come into force this week in order to try to better contain the omicron variant, which is causing more than 300,000 daily infections in recent days.

The text replaces the previous health passport (vaccines or negative test) with one based solely on vaccines, which means that those who refuse to be immunized against covid will have limited access to an important series of social activities.

Only those who have a complete vaccination schedule with three doses, or two doses with a certification of curing the disease in the last six months or have a medical exemption from the vaccine, will be able to enter cultural places such as cinemas, theaters or museums.

The same will happen with the entrance to large shopping centers, as well as to cafes, bars and restaurants, as well as access to medium and long-distance public transport.

They also increase the penalties for those who are caught with a false vaccine passport, who may be sentenced to a maximum of five years in prison and a fine of 75,000 euros for those who have several falsified documents.

The parliamentary and social debate heated up to the level of a genuine political storm after Macron said earlier this month that he wanted to “annoy” or “fuck” the unvaccinated.

According to official figures, some 4.9 million French people who can be vaccinated refuse protection, which represents 7.3% of the national population.

Meanwhile, 31.6 million third doses have already been administered, indicate the latest data from the Ministry of Health.

The current health passports of those who have only two doses will expire seven months after the administration of the second, unless the person has had the disease in the previous six months.