Three months after its entry into force, the Senate adopted Monday, June 22, the bill organizing the exit from the state of health emergency after July 10.
The bill was voted at first reading by show of hands, with in particular the support of elected officials Les Républicains (LR), the left opposing a text in "trompe-l'oeil" which amounts to "prolonging the state emergency".
Deputies and senators will try to agree on a common text, Thursday in joint joint committee, failing which a new reading will have to be organized in the two chambers, the Assembly having the last word.
The leader of the LR senators, Bruno Retailleau, warned that the Senate had found "a very narrow way not to reject the text" and had arrived "at the limit" of its "possibilities of flexibility".
✅Mon. June 22, the # Senate adopted the PJL organizing the exit from the state of health emergency.
It aims to organize the exit from the state of health emergency by creating, for a period of 4 months from July 11, an intermediate and provisional regime.
➡️https: //t.co/sBy1SuHA2w pic.twitter.com/C1v6nLgD8Y
Exceptions in Guyana and Mayotte
Came into force on March 24 to deal with the Covid-19 epidemic, the state of health emergency, which allows certain public freedoms to be restricted, had been extended in May until July 10.
The government intends to put an end to it on all the French territory, with the exception of Guyana and Mayotte where it will be extended "until October 30 inclusive", because the virus still circulates there actively. "The situation is deteriorating considerably" in Guyana, also warned Antoine Karam (related The Republic on the move), senator of this community where the Minister of Overseas Annick Girardin is expected Tuesday.
For the rest of the country, the text allows for the same period restrictions on the movement of people, the reception of the public in certain establishments or gatherings. Senators have amended the text to allow the government to "regulate", while excluding the possibility of prohibition.
"There is a limit to what can be done in terms of restricting public freedoms," said the president of the Law Commission, Philippe Bas (LR), who defended provisions "proportionate" to the situation and argues that the government could still trigger a state of health emergency again. The Minister of Health, Olivier Véran, tried unsuccessfully to restore the text voted in the National Assembly.
"The return of ordinary law is the end of the exception (...), it is not the end of vigilance", he insisted, stressing that "many measures will remain relevant in the coming months ", while the risks of a restart of the coronavirus epidemic" do exist ".
Regarding the obligation of tests for people traveling by plane between overseas territories and France, the senators limited it to people "having stayed during the previous month in an area of circulation of the infection ".
They also modified the article of the public health code which served as the basis for the first restrictive measures at the start of the epidemic in order to "clarify and make it secure". They thus limited the possibilities of intervention by the Minister of Health to measures relating to the organization of the health system and placement in quarantine and isolation.
The senators finally adopted without modification the article extending the conservation of certain data collected by health information systems. MEPs restricted this possibility to the sole purpose of epidemiological surveillance and research, without identifying persons.
With AFP
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