"All French adults who wish" will be offered a vaccine by September 22, Emmanuel Macron promised Tuesday, February 2.
The president, who assured that the vaccination campaign "is taking place at the rate that was planned", also estimated on TF1 that the 80% of residents of nursing homes who wished - or 500,000 people - will have been vaccinated ci "early March".
Regarding the AstraZeneca vaccine, Emmanuel Macron said that the State would "obviously" follow the recommendation of the High Health Authority to reserve it for people under 65 years old.
It will probably first be used for caregivers under 60 and then "offered by age groups", starting with the oldest, he added.
"But we will not offer it to over 65s," he insisted.
The president acknowledged that the pace "may seem too slow" compared to other countries "which had made other bets or which are also countries which, like the United Kingdom, are islands".
"But I am defending the strategy that we have adopted with Germany, with the European Union, which is precisely to vaccinate in Europe".
France has "exactly the same pace, the same solution as our German neighbors and our other European neighbors," he said.
When the Russian vaccine Sputnik V, whose scientific journal The Lancet has confirmed the effectiveness, he explained that it would be used if the health authorities validate it: "Today we have seen publications which seem to indicate a very strong efficacy of the Sputnik vaccine, but we cannot distribute it in France until the Russian producer has submitted a marketing authorization request ".
"The minute he asks for it, European and national health authorities will examine him," he promised.
"And, depending on its results and the evidence" that it is effective, France will decide whether or not to use it.
"It's not a political decision, it's a scientific decision, and fortunately."
Emmanuel Macron also explained that the European Union had secured 2.3 billion doses of vaccines for the moment, which makes it possible to guarantee this general vaccination of the French by the end of the summer.
"To have a country as open as possible despite the virus"
"It is not our vaccination strategy that will make it possible to avoid, in the short term, a reconfinement or not", also declared the Head of State after a meeting with the industrial players of vaccines at 'Elysium.
But "it is our mobilization to all, that is to say our ability to take the barrier gestures" and "our ability to respect the triptych test-support-protect", he added.
It is "collectively" "to be extraordinarily responsible as our fellow citizens have been for several weeks, and I thank them very deeply", continued Emmanuel Macron.
"We will continue to manage this epidemic in this way, with an objective which is to hold out, to protect the weakest, to protect our health system and to be able to protect as much as possible our youth who need to study, to go to school. school ", in short" to have a country as open as possible despite the virus ".
The government surprised Friday by deciding to suspend a third confinement, judging that the evolution of the epidemic made it possible at this stage to avoid it.
But it took several new measures, in particular closing French borders to people coming from countries outside the EU and closing major non-food shopping centers.
A point of the situation will be made Wednesday morning during a new Defense Council at the Elysee.
With AFP
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