This is the end of a long and heated parliamentary debate on the bill “strengthening the tools for managing the health crisis and modifying the public health code”, which establishes the vaccination pass. The text was adopted, Sunday January 16, at the beginning of the evening, by a final vote of the National Assembly. The device should come into force five days later than what the government had initially planned, around January 20, after a delay in the examination of the combined text in the Assembly and the Senate. Socialist parliamentarians have already announced that they would seize the Constitutional Council on the text.
When it comes into force, the vaccination pass will replace the health pass for access to leisure activities, restaurants and bars, fairs or interregional public transport. This means that presenting a negative test will no longer suffice, except to gain access to health facilities and services. The main contribution of the parliamentary debate, defended in the Senate, is that the vaccination pass will only apply to people over 16, the age of “vaccine freedom” against Covid-19 (i.e. when there is no need for parental authorization). Minors aged 12 to 15 will remain subject to the obligation to present the current health pass.
On the other hand, the National Assembly restored the principle, contested by the Senate, of identity verification by professionals in bars, cafes, restaurants in the event of doubt about the identity of the holder of a vaccination pass.
Substantive Divisions
At the opening of this last session of examination of the text, Sunday at 4 p.m., the Minister Delegate for Autonomy, Brigitte Bourguignon, urged the deputies: the French “expect height from us” and “the sense of the general interest”, she said. The deputies of La France insoumise (LFI), opposed to the adoption of the device, defended, in vain, a last motion of preliminary rejection.
As explained by the President of the National Assembly at the perch, Richard Ferrand, the deputies have devoted more than thirty-five hours to the examination of the text since the beginning of January, which has caused divisions and debates both in the chamber lower than in the Senate.
If the parliamentarians of the majority, some of the elected representatives of the Republicans (LR) and the Socialist Party (PS) voted in favor of the bill at first and second reading, the LFI group, the Communist deputies and the elected representatives of the National Rally (RN) voted against. Nevertheless, some of the opposition in favor of the vaccination pass, like the right-wing majority in the Senate, demanded at least a framework over time for the device or even the abolition of identity checks.
These fundamental divisions explain the tense exchanges between parliamentarians of the majority and those of the opposition in recent days and the cumulative delay in the examination of the text. While a simple week of examination of the bill was initially scheduled for an application of the pass desired by the government from January 15, the examination time finally doubled, between hiccups, controversies and repeated twists.
Fifteen days of stalemate in the debates
The Assembly’s law commission had met to study this text presented urgently by the government, given the surge caused by the Omicron variant. The opposition deputies had tabled a large number of amendments – more than 500 – making the examination of the text in a single meeting, Monday, January 3, complicated. Due to disagreements between elected officials on the provisions of the text and a successful “curtain strike” by the opposition, the discussion was interrupted around midnight, when the majority was put in a minority. The confrontation was established in particular between the elected LR and those of La République en Marche (LRM).
The schedule continued to derail the next day. The examination of the text by the deputies had resumed, Tuesday, January 4 in the evening, but the publication of the interview with Emmanuel Macron where he claimed to have “very want to annoy [les non-vaccinés] rekindled the fire in the hemicycle, leading to a new suspension of the session during the night.
It will have been necessary for the Prime Minister, Jean Castex, to intervene before the deputies, Wednesday January 5, for the examination to resume its course. The National Assembly then had a first reading of the bill on Thursday morning. A vote marked by a division of right-wing elected officials, although the LR presidential candidate, Valérie Pécresse, is in favor of the vaccination pass.
The first reading in the Senate, Monday, January 10, was more peaceful, but the senators marked their distance on several provisions, leaving the vaccination pass in force for minors and removing identity verification by restaurateurs.
Thursday, January 13, the agreement between deputies and senators in a joint committee on the bill seemed within reach, when a tweet left too soon from the boss of LR senators, Bruno Retailleau, claiming a “Common Sense Victory” of his people, shattered this perspective. The president of the law commission, Yaël Braun-Pivet (LRM), denounced “an intolerable attack on institutions”, while the rapporteur for the Senate, Philippe Bas (LR), deplored a “overreaction” of the majority.
The bill therefore left for a final shuttle between the two chambers, resulting in this convocation, Sunday, of the deputies.