French citizens who decline to take the coronavirus vaccine will be barred from public transportation, among other places, under a controversial “Green Passport” plan set out in a draft law that’s now on its way to parliament.
Gaining the support of Prime Minister Jean Castex’s cabinet earlier this week, the bill proposes to deny “access to transport or to some locations, as well as certain activities” to those unable to prove that they received a “preventative treatment” for Covid-19, including a vaccine, or produce a negative virus screening.
The draft bill has been harshly denounced by members of the opposition, with the spokesman of the right-wing National Rally party (RN), Sebastien Chenu, accusing the government of planning a “health dictatorship.” RN head Marine Le Pen, meanwhile, blasted the proposed measure as “essentially totalitarian.”
“In a backhanded way, this bill does not aim to make vaccinations mandatory, but will prevent anybody who doesn’t comply from having a social life.”
The center-right Republicans party (LR) also condemned the bill, with deputy leader Guillaume Peltier saying it was “inconceivable” that officials would “get all the power to suspend our freedoms without parliamentary control.”
A member of President Emmanuel Macron’s La Republique En Marche party, Amelie de Montchalin, shot back at the critics, insisting the hot-button bill is “not at all made to create exceptional powers for the government” or establish an authoritarian “health state.”
