France is entering "a period of turbulence with Omicron", but "if the variant is accelerating, we are also accelerating," said government spokesman Gabriel Attal after a videoconference between Prime Minister Jean Castex and associations of local elected representatives on this new version pass.

Time is running out: the incidence rate of Covid-19 has reached "once again a record" in France, at 537 cases per week per 100,000 inhabitants, and "the Omicron variant is coming", with "probably" more than 10% of contaminations linked to it, or even more in Ile-de-France, and even more in Paris, where it is now responsible for "more than one in three contamination", according to Mr. Attal.

Very contagious, Omicron doubled the number of cases "every two to three days", he had underlined a little earlier on France 2, recalling the "absolutely overwhelming progression" already observed in the United Kingdom, but also "the question mark "on" the proportion of severe cases requiring hospitalization "related to this variant.

Jean Castex, who announced Friday, December 17 its entry into force by the end of January, told local elected officials Tuesday morning to have "decided to accelerate and advance this schedule", in order to have the vaccine pass "without waiting ", according to Gabriel Attal: the objective of seeing it definitively adopted by the parliament is reduced to" the first half of January ".

The text will be adopted during an exceptional Council of Ministers on Monday, December 27, before its presentation the same week to Parliament.

Jean Castex is to consult the parliamentary groups on this subject on Tuesday afternoon.

20 million booster shots

Additional level of the health barrier erected against Omicron, the government will decide at the end of the meetings on Tuesday whether it includes in the text on the vaccine pass a health pass in business, said Mr. Attal on France 2.

The possibility of such a measure causes reluctance.

The social partners reported this to Labor Minister Elisabeth Borne on Monday during consultations.

If there is "a form of consensus around the need for teleworking", there is "however not really around a health pass in business", recognizes Gabriel Attal.

But he insists: "The objective is to encourage vaccination as much as possible because we can still see that it is our best tool in the face of the progression of the epidemic".

President LREM of the Economic Affairs Committee in the National Assembly, Roland Lescure, puts in the balance "the risk" of a re-containment if all measures are not taken, while European countries, such as Netherlands, re-define.

"The real challenge in companies is to establish both collective accountability and trust between different employees," he said Tuesday on France Inter, appearing optimistic: "in the same way that (the introduction of the sanitary pass, Editor's note) went well in restaurants, it will go well in the vast majority of companies ".

Coronavirus: the situation in France Simon MALFATTO AFP

The vaccine booster campaign is in full swing.

"Today we will reach 20 million recalls", welcomed the Minister of Health Olivier Véran in a tweet, that is to say with "four days in advance" on the objective he had set, underlined Gabriel Attal.

At the same time, the government, which has tightened border controls, closed nightclubs and banned large gatherings on public roads for December 31, is counting on the "responsibility" of the French during the holidays.

But it does not exclude either going "beyond" in the event of "a very strong resumption of the epidemic linked to the Omicron variant", warned Gabriel Attal.

© 2021 AFP