French legislators have began debating a draft bill aiming at replacing France’s COVID health pass with a vaccine pass, despite death threats from the ruling party.
If implemented, the new rule would require persons above the age of 12 to show a valid vaccination certificate while entering leisure establishments such as restaurants and shops.
The proposed law will be voted on by lawmakers later Monday before being sent to the Senate.
To tackle the highly transmissible Omicron strain of the coronavirus, France has vaccinated 77 percent of its population and is pushing out booster injections.
However, more over four million individuals, including more than one million persons over the age of 65, are still unvaccinated.
And when the government hurries out immunization passes, their public life will be severely limited.
“The goal of this law is not to curtail freedoms… it is to save lives,” Health Minister Oliver Veran stated, slamming people who oppose immunisations for their “selfishness.”
“They claim to be fighting for freedom, but their struggle is petty and has no regard for the basic principles that govern how we live together as a society, even in these trying times,” Veran added.
Left-wing legislator Jean-Luc Melenchon said the new bill would create a “totalitarian, authoritarian society” as Monday’s debate continued late into the night.
“You have been incorrect on everything,” he informed the administration in dealing with the pandemic.
‘We are not going to give up.’
Meanwhile, lawmakers from France’s ruling party declared on Monday that they would not be intimidated by the death threats received by dozens of politicians over the bill.
“We will not capitulate,” declared Yael Braun-Pivet, a member of the ruling La Republique en Marche (LREM) party, referring to death threats received by politicians of all colours. “It’s our democracy on the line.”
Last week, a governing party lawmaker’s garage was set on fire, with suspected anti-vaccination demonstrators scrawling graffiti on a neighboring wall.
After numerous politicians, notably LREM’s Barbara Bessot Ballot, went public with death threats, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin announced police will beef up safety for lawmakers.
“Those death threats are unacceptable,” she remarked on Twitter, referring to 52 MPs who had received messages threatening to kill them for “attacking our freedom.”
When the health pass was presented in the middle of 2021, considerable crowds rallied against it, but participation at weekend protests declined as the vaccine’s acceptance grew.
