On the program, “the lifting of almost all of the remaining measures from next Monday”, summed up government spokesman Gabriel Attal on Wednesday at the end of the Council of Ministers.

Two years after the first anti-Covid confinement, "we have been waiting for these advances for a very long time, the French have been waiting for them, they mark a decisive step", he welcomed, when the restrictions had already been gradually eased in recent years. weeks in a context of declining epidemic.

Monday's stage boils down to two major measures.

The vaccine pass, which requires being vaccinated against Covid to access many places, will be lifted even if its "health" version, which also works with a negative test for the virus, will be maintained in health establishments in the broad sense. : hospitals, nursing homes...

Entrance to a cinema with verification of the health pass and wearing of a compulsory mask, in Paris on July 21, 2021 ALAIN JOCARD AFP / Archives

The mask will no longer be compulsory, with the exception of transport and, again, health establishments.

This reduction concerns in particular schools, shops and companies, which will keep the choice of whether or not to impose it on their employees.

Cinemas, restaurants or museums were no longer subject to this obligation since the end of February.

With this vast relief, France is following the example of several European countries, starting with Denmark, which launched the movement in early January.

"Electoral Considerations"

But the date chosen appears paradoxical at the very moment when "the number of cases (...) seems to no longer decrease", in the words of Mr. Attal, an understatement when the epidemic has been recording a small rebound for several days.

The Minister of Health Olivier Véran during a press conference on the health situation on January 20, 2022 in Paris JULIEN DE ROSA AFP / Archives

This is partly linked to a lesser vigilance of the French - logical when the end of the restrictions has been announced for weeks - and to the rise of "BA.2", a particularly transmissible version of the Omicron variant, already highly contagious in its previous incarnation.

The government therefore recanted, because it had said that it would only end the vaccination pass if the epidemic stopped its progression.

Another condition, mentioned several weeks ago by the Minister of Health, Olivier Véran, is also not fulfilled for the time being.

The end of the pass was supposed to come to less than 1,500 people hospitalized in intensive care with the Covid.

More than 1,800 patients were still in this case this weekend.

Certainly, Mr. Véran on Friday tempered the enthusiasm of the government, promising to remain "extremely vigilant".

A queue in front of a pharmacy to carry out antigenic tests, January 19, 2022 in Savenay (Loire-Atlantique, west) LOIC VENANCE AFP / Archives

This is not enough to reassure some doctors and researchers who regret a relief that they consider illegible, too early and suspect of demagoguery one month before the presidential election in which the Head of State, Emmanuel Macron, is a candidate for a new mandate.

The government obeys more "electoral considerations than public health", estimated this week in the newspaper Liberation the epidemiologist Dominique Costagliola.

What about the immunocompromised?

These researchers are less worried about the end of the vaccination pass, the effect of which on the epidemic remains very uncertain, than about the lifting of the obligation to wear a mask.

They are mainly concerned about the fate of immunocompromised people, for whom vaccination has little effect.

The room of a patient infected with Covid-19 at the AP-HP in Clamart, near Paris, on December 23, 2021 GEOFFROY VAN DER HASSELT AFP / Archives

But if part of the medical world is worried, this is not the case for the political world, a sign that the return to normal is widely agreed upon.

No opponent of Mr. Macron, on the left or on the right, considered the easing of the measures too rapid, in a context mainly dominated by the war in Ukraine and, to a lesser extent, economic considerations such as pensions or the purchasing power.

Beyond the political consensus, the government can also rely on relatively optimistic forecasts from the Pasteur Institute, whose models serve as the basis for the scientific council which, in return, advises the State in the health crisis.

Even in the worst case, the Institute estimates that the wave will be far from the peak observed at the start of the year at more than 300,000 cases per day.

As for the effects on hospitalizations, the most crucial issue, they would be limited by the fact that Omicron - in its BA2 version as in its previous incarnation - appears much less dangerous than its predecessor Delta, which it has now almost totally supplanted.

© 2022 AFP