Anti-passes in the street, indifferent to the government's "electoralist" promises

Europe 1 with AFP 9:53 p.m., February 19, 2022

Opponents of the vaccine pass and the government's health policy again marched through the streets of Paris and several other cities on Saturday, convinced that the announced reductions in restrictions linked to Covid-19 are only an "electoralist" promise.

"We must not be taken for sausages! It is to get re-elected that Emmanuel Macron says that. And when he is elected, they will release a new variant for us", thinks Béatrice (she refused to give her surname ), 55, who demonstrated from the 16th arrondissement of Paris to the Ministry of Health, in one of the five Parisian processions.

"Macron, your pass, we don't want it"

Under many French flags, a few Canadian or American banners and under the slogans "Resistance", "Macron, your pass, we don't want it", about a thousand people marched in this procession of "Patriots", the group by Florian Philippot, one of the figures of the anti-pass movement who threw in the towel on Friday in the presidential race.

"We do not want us to remove the pass (vaccination) to put it back a few days later. We want to repeal it definitively", explained Florian Philippot, at the microphone, claiming to stand alongside "all peoples freedoms of the world in the same movement of resistance".

Virginie (she refused to give her name), who was also marching towards the Ministry of Health, said she was "disappointed" at the abandonment of the former right-hand man of Marine Le Pen, because "everything he said is correct".

>> READ ALSO - 

Vaccination pass: 71% of French people in favor of lifting it

"These are electoral announcements"

But the 56-year-old psychologist, who has been demonstrating against the government's health policy since 2020, does not intend to give up: "These are electoral announcements. How many deaths since 2020 because we did not treat people? “, asks for this support from Professor Didier Raoult.

After the announced reduction in the health protocol in schools and the end of the wearing of masks in certain closed places, the Minister of Health, Olivier Véran, envisaged this week the end of the wearing of masks indoors in mid-March, as well as a reduction in the vaccination pass in the event of “very weak” circulation of the virus.

"We must not let go. The pass they will remove but after the elections it will be even worse", also estimated a demonstrator in Strasbourg, where around 550 people marched near the city center, according to the prefecture.