• The Paca region and particularly certain neighborhoods have vaccination rates well below the national average.

  • Lucie Guimier, researcher in public health explains it by “a double divide”, explains that of political ideas, pronounced in the Paca region and a socio-economic divide, which we observe on the national territory.

  • Yazid Attalah, doctor and president of an association which works in the districts of Marseille on behalf of the ARS, explains the difficulties and strategies put in place by his association.

If there is a battle for vaccination, it is not the inhabitants of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region who will have been the first to go to the front. The Paca region and particularly certain neighborhoods have vaccination rates well below the national average (see box).

Lucie Guimier, researcher associated with the French Institute of Geopolitics and author of a thesis entitled

Geography of vaccine resistance in France

(2016), had already observed, by studying vaccines against measles (MMR) and hepatitis B “ vaccination rates in the south-east for forty years lower than the rest of the country ”. A study illustrating the words of Sébastien Debeaumont, Deputy Director General of ARS Paca, who already mentioned for

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"the historic vaccinoscepticism of the region", regretting that "the one against Covid-19 is unfortunately no exception" .

In question "a double fracture", explains Lucie Guimier. "There is a divide in political ideas, and a socio-economic divide that we observe at the national level and which is not specific to Paca," she begins. Thus on the political divide, “vaccine resistance follows political opposition movements. I think it is safe to say that this is a way of protesting against the government ”. An opposition that came "to a lesser extent from environmental and anti-globalization movements" but which exists above all in a "very marked way on the far right" (Fréjus, RN town hall, is for example one of the least vaccinated towns in the Var. , with 47.2%).An electorate that thrives in Paca where the last regional elections were played out between two very strong rights (the RN of Mariani against the LR of Muselier).

The Paris-province match

We must add to this, “the distance from Paris”, coupled with “a strong local identity” and a certain inclination not to appreciate everything that comes down from the capital.

A sort of “pride” embodied, according to Lucie Guimier, by a character like Didier Raoult “who has become a local icon, catalyst and receptacle of this resistance, against which the whole doxa has risen”.

The researcher also invites us to remember the media contest that took place last September, following the announcement of the closure of bars in Marseille by Olivier Véran.

Benoît Payan, the current mayor of Marseille, but then first deputy, had denounced "an affront".

"Once again, our territory is sanctioned, punished, pointed out," he was indignant.

The socio-economic divide is illustrated by a map of average incomes per capita which would be superimposed on that of vaccination.

This is observed nationally, and necessarily well in Marseille, which is one of the poorest neighborhoods in France.

If you don't have enough to go to the cinema or to a restaurant, there is no real incentive to go for the vaccine, ”summarizes Lucie Guimier.

"A former public health official in Guyana told me that in order to motivate people to get vaccinated, he mentioned his need to take the plane, which is not at all within the possibilities and the concerns of the populations".

Finally, nuance Lucie Guimier, "one should not be Manichean on these analyzes, it is multifactorial, and there is probably resistance in all the social classes".

Teaching in the neighborhoods of Marseille

An observation shared by Yazid Attalah, doctor and above all president of the association Santé et Environnement pour tous (Sept) which works with a doctor and 12 mediators in the districts of Marseille to explain the vaccination.

“From March 2020 we knew that the inhabitants of lower-income neighborhoods were going to die because the health supply there is totally in deficit.

For me, this is the main reason, not for reluctance to be vaccinated but for lack of understanding, ”he says.

This is why the Regional Health Agency (ARS) mandated its association from the start of the Covid-19 pandemic to provide education in the neighborhoods of Marseille.

"You have to understand that the districts of Marseille represent a population of nearly 450,000 inhabitants," he introduced.

With a fairly heterogeneous population, people who speak French, others who do not speak, people who do not understand and others who are drunk on fake news, with everything we can hear… 5G, vaccines that stick to the skin and their dangerousness ... Add transport problems and the difficulty of accessing digital technology, all of this put together explains [this lower rate] ”.

"You have to have the codes"

However, the inhabitants of working-class neighborhoods are not present in the demonstrations of opponents of the health pass or the vaccination. “These are not primary antivaxes. These are people who are already exhausted by a daily life which is very hard and who are not hermetic to fake news. They need educational work, explaining what the different vaccines are, what RNA is, and that is what we are doing in the field ”. Yazid Attalah himself comes from his neighborhoods, where his teams live. “You have to have the codes. Because it's always the same, for the people who live in the neighborhoods you can have people who come, but for them, they give their good word, take their salaries and break ”, knows the president of the association Seven .

Its strategy: "target resource people".

At the same time those who are most notoriously opposed, "with successes but also some failures" and mothers who "are the patroness of the households and can take their husbands and their children".

Finally, there are some of the people who live in working-class neighborhoods who never "go out."

The injunction to be vaccinated then does not make much sense for them.

They have always been resourceful and on the margins, so a little more or a little less ... "

"We can speak of a failure of the vaccination campaign at this level, in the question of access to care for the less privileged socio-professional categories", continues Lucie Guimier.

“The government wants to play a sprint, we will run a marathon,” concludes Yazid Attalah.

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According to public data from August 1, the region is, with 48.6% of people fully vaccinated, the one with the lowest vaccination rate in mainland France (average of 52.7%), after Corsica (44, 9%).

Conversely, the Brittany region leads the way, with 56.3% of people having a complete vaccination schedule (closely followed by Nouvelle-Aquitaine and Normandy, 55.9% each).

So much for the big picture.

In detail, among the 5 departments that make up the Paca region, the Var and the Alpes-Maritimes, with respectively (50.6% and 51.4%) are almost in the national average.

Conversely Bouches-du-Rhône (46.5%), Vaucluse (47.4%) and Alpes-de-Haute-Provence (45.2%) lead this average.

Added to this division are new ones where the poorest territories are also the least vaccinated.

The 3rd, 14th and 15th arrondissements of Marseille, for example, have complete vaccination rates of less than 25%, which is more than half the national average.

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