The "sanitary pass" adopted.

Just like the gradual exit from the state of emergency.

The Parliament adopted definitively, Thursday, May 27, by a final vote of the Senate, the bill governing the gradual exit from the state of health emergency, which notably allows the establishment of a controversial "health pass".

After the National Assembly on Tuesday, the upper house, dominated by the right-wing opposition, approved by a show of hands the text which had been the subject of an agreement between the two chambers in a joint committee.

The Communist-majority PS and CRCE groups voted against and environmentalists abstained.

A fair balance between our freedoms and the protection of public health

The deputies of the left (GDR, LFI, SOC) decided to seize the Constitutional Council, judging that it "gives very important powers to the government on bases much too vague and imprecise".

The leader of the senators of the CRCE group, Eliane Assassi, said "to bring a lot of hope" in this appeal.

The Secretary of State for Pensions and Occupational Health, Laurent Pietraszewski, for his part welcomed in the hemicycle of the Luxembourg Palace "a fair balance between our freedoms and the protection of public health".

It is a "point of balance between enthusiasm and prudence", had underlined in front of the deputies the Secretary of State to the Minister of Solidarity and Health Adrien Taquet, in a context of decline of the epidemic of Covid-19 and acceleration of vaccination

The transitional regime that it provides provides a legal framework for the deconfinement measures announced by the executive, without lowering our guard against the hypothesis of an epidemic resumption.

It will end on September 30, and not the end of October as the executive had wished.

Uselessness

The rapporteur of the text in the Senate Philippe Bas (LR), reiterated its "uselessness", affirming that "it would have been enough to ask Parliament to extend the state of health emergency to get out of the state of health emergency" .

The text has been significantly altered after it passed through the hands of parliamentarians from the two assemblies.

Deputies and senators in particular noted the limitation of the use of curfews and confinements within the framework of this transitional regime.

The first remains possible and planned for the next 30 days from June 1.

After this period, if the executive plans to use it again, it will then again have to declare a state of emergency for a period limited to 30 days before, possibly, returning to Parliament.

Moreover, at the initiative of the Senate, the local reconfigurations provided for by law can only be decided for a maximum of one month without the Parliament being consulted.

On the sensitive aspect of the health pass, deputies and senators validated the contributions voted by the two chambers.

Confusion

Introduced by the government by amendment to the National Assembly, the "sanitary pass" will be limited to large gatherings, such as festivals, and subject to a series of measures limiting attacks on individual freedoms.

It will also be "temporary, the time of a summer", noted Mr. Bas.

The senators also obtained that it could be implemented only in places which do not make it possible to ensure compliance with barrier gestures.

Only authorized persons may carry out checks.

The "health pass" will subordinate access to major events, more than 1000 people according to the government's promise, to the presentation of a negative result of screening for the virus, a proof of vaccination, or a certificate of recovery from contamination.

Mr. Pietraszewski stressed that "sanctions will be taken" when it is requested outside of what the law provides.

Philippe Bas regretted "a lot of confusion" with the European health passport, intended to facilitate free movement in the EU, or with "multiple information" on the use of a QR Code which, scanned at the entrance to a restaurant or a gym via the TousAntiCovid application, will allow you to be informed of a risk of Covid-19 contamination if a contagious person was in the establishment.

These are "totally separate regimes," recalled the Senator from La Manche.

With AFP

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