From Paris
A phrase from the French president it unleashed a political volcano at the same time that it strengthened its entry into the electoral campaign for the presidential elections in April this year. In full parliamentary debate around the adoption of a bill that aims to transform the current health pass into a new “vaccination pass”, Emmanuel Macron said in an interview published by the newspaper The Parisian who thought “fuck the unvaccinated”. The expression achieved the unprecedented feat of uniting all the political opposition against the president. The entire ideological arc came out to lash out at a president who publicly proposed to complicate the lives of people who have refused to administer the vaccine against covid-19.
Get vaccinated or restricted
The vulgar tone of the phrase impacted more than the goal itself. Vaccination continues to be the ship that guides the government’s strategy to confront the pandemic and its many variants. In the same interview the head of state added that he would continue “until the end” with the vaccine and he clarified that he was not going to vaccinate them “by force.” However, he cautioned that from January 15 onwards “they will no longer be able to go to a restaurant, or have a drink, or go to the theater, or go to the movies”. In short, it is about forcing the unvaccinated to submit to a rule that they do not accept, even if, up to now, there is no text of law that has made vaccination mandatory as has just happened. in Italy for those over 50. It was not a rhetorical slip by the president but a formal declaration of war. Journal sources The Parisian confirmed that, before its publication, the interview was read by the Presidential Palace of the Elysee.
“Political lack,” selection between “good and bad French,” statements “unworthy and irresponsible”, the entire political class turned against the president for a term that, despite its rudeness, is part of everyday language, popular or not. His phrase sounds more like an electoral campaign profile than a communication error. It is not impossible that, beyond the political reactions and astonishment caused by a phrase that does not fit very well in the mouth of a president, Emmanuel Macron ends up in the end with more support than critics among public opinion. The percentages of the spread of the pandemic and the unvaccinated are the highest in Europe. In France there are still 5 million people not vaccinated and today they constitute 70% of the new infections whose records are exceeded every day. The French Minister of Health, Olivier Véran, reported that on Wednesday, January 5, 332,000 infections were recorded, a figure that is equivalent to 22% more than the day before (272,000). In the last seven days the average of contagions are around 200 thousand people per day. Between December 29, 2021 and January 4, 2022, some 187 people have died daily victims of the virus.
“Vaccine pass”
For now, the French president’s statements did not translate into a refusal to be vaccinated. Some 66 thousand people were vaccinated this Wednesday and with it the numbers of the month of October of last year were equaled. It should also be noted that this flow of vaccinations is also part of the parliamentary storm which has been blowing for three days with the debates in view of the approval of a bill whose main objective is, as Macron made clear, to entangle the existence of the unvaccinated. If approved, as of January 15, the law I would change the current health pass for a “vaccine pass” whose main provision is precisely that, Without vaccination, you cannot enter public places such as bars, restaurants, museums or cinemas. It is, in its own way, an ingenious way of making vaccination mandatory without saying it with a law.
The debate got complicated on Monday and the session had to be suspended at midnight when 500 of the 650 amendments tabled had yet to be reviewed. The macronist parliamentary majority defends the principle of the protection of society, the right accepts the law, but with a temporary limitation, the socialists do not say much, that is, they agree, while for the left Jean-Luc Mélenchon ( Francia Insoumise) the project represents a “collective punishment”. Ecologists are totally against it and the extreme right of Marine Le Pen’s party (National Regrouping) opts for the “freedom to be vaccinated”. In fact, that is what Macron had promised before tightening the nuts due to the incessant flow of infections caused by the omicron variant. The French president changed his antagonist. In 2020 he said “we are at war” against the virus. In 2022 the rhetoric is the war against the unvaccinated.
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