Health pass: showdown between the government and the Senate

Europe 1 with AFP 4:33 p.m., October 28, 2021

A standoff began Thursday between the Senate, dominated by the right-wing opposition, and the government on the extension of the possibility of using the health pass and other braking measures against the Covid-19 epidemic.

A government determined "to retain as a horizon the month of July 2022"

On the one hand, the government "is determined to retain the month of July 2022 as the horizon," said Minister Brigitte Bourguignon at the opening of the first reading examination of the bill on "various provisions for health vigilance" .

On the other, the Senate which refuses to give "a blank check" to the government.

The senators have thus largely rewritten in committee the text adopted at first reading last week in the National Assembly, after heated debates.

A Senate that sets February 28 as a limit

Once the text has been voted on in the Senate, with its modifications, deputies and senators will try to agree next week on a common version in a joint committee. In the event of failure, the National Assembly will have the last word. In the meantime, in the name of "a fundamental democratic requirement", the senators reduced the deadline from July 31 to February 28, date of suspension of parliamentary work before the electoral deadlines. LR reporter Philippe Bas considers that "three and a half months is fine, eight and a half months is too much".

It is up to the government to return to Parliament to continue beyond, if the health situation so requires. "We know very well now that we will have to live with the virus at least until the summer", argued Ms. Bourguignon, stressing that the winter period will be "conducive to a worsening of the situation". "The government tells us 'we are going to step over the presidential elections and we will pass again in front of the Parliament'. No. We give the government a certain number of powers over our freedoms, we want control of the Parliament", affirms the leader of the senators LR Bruno Retailleau.

"It is a marker of the Senate", adds the president of the centrist group Hervé Marseille, who underlines the unknowns of the post-election period: "which president? Which ministers? Which majority?".

On the left, the boss of the PS senators Patrick Kanner also criticizes the executive "for its logic of concentration of power".

The Minister for Autonomy said that the report planned by the government for mid-February "will provide a review clause in Parliament", while for senators a debate on a report cannot replace the vote of a text of law.

A refusal to territorialize the health pass

Brigitte Bourguignon again opposed an end of inadmissibility to the "territorialization" of the health pass, proposed by the rapporteur, which is debated even within the senatorial majority. "We propose that the health pass be put on the verge of extinction," said Philippe Bas: it could no longer be used in the departments which will have, by November 15, more than 75% of their population vaccinated (i.e. nearly 90% of over 12s).

"Where we are well protected, do not apply disproportionate constraints", he had defended a little earlier on Public Senate, also pleading for an application of the pass "a little with variable geometry" in the departments where it would be. maintained: compulsory at the entrance to cafes and restaurants, "not useful" in cinemas, theaters and concerts "where you can keep the mask". "We must start to consider the conditions to get out", agrees Bruno Retailleau.

On the left, the Socialists will propose to go further, believing that the health pass "no longer has any reason to exist in metropolitan France", according to Marie-Pierre de La Gontrie.

The Minister of Health Olivier Véran believes he does not have "sufficient perspective at this stage" to "deprive himself of a tool that is functional" and "very well accepted by people".