While rallies against the extension of the health pass punctuated France on Saturday, the government is observing this phenomenon of opposition with attention.

The "yellow vests" crisis is still in people's minds, especially less than a year before the presidential election.

DECRYPTION

The pressure of opponents to the extension of the health pass seems to be getting stronger, even if an Ipsos poll for

Le Parisien

shows that two thirds of French people support this measure. On Saturday, tens of thousands of demonstrators marched across France, while several elected officials have been the subject of verbal threats in recent days. Friday, the office of President LREM of the National Assembly, Richard Ferrand, was invaded by about fifteen anti-vaccine protesters. The executive remains very attentive to these excesses, for fear of a new social and political crisis, more than two years after the demonstrations of "yellow vests".

The day after the announcement of the extension of the health pass by Emmanuel Macron, the executive first welcomed the explosion of registrations on the Doctolib site to be vaccinated, but for several days, with in particular the degradation of certain vaccination centers and threats against pro-vaccination elected officials, the executive is paying more and more attention to "weak signals" sent by the French hostile to the health pass. 

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Increase monitoring of deputies' hotlines

Proof that the executive is closely scrutinizing this phenomenon of rejection: Friday evening, a note that Europe 1 was able to consult was sent to all ministers by the SIG, the government's information service. This note provides an inventory of all the demonstrations against the health pass, with estimates of mobilization. State services then planned more than 80 demonstrations for Saturday. 

Also on Friday evening, Gérald Darmanin, the Minister of the Interior, sent a telegram to the prefects asking them to increase the surveillance of the deputies' hotlines. Even if for the moment the number of demonstrators is not extremely important, the government is now taking the risk very seriously, because there is no question of rekindling the flame of "yellow vests" a few months before the presidential election.