Having just spent a few days in Paris, we’ve quickly become used to showing our pass sanitaire, or vaccination certificate, to gain access to the city’s main tourist sights, including museums, churches and art galleries.
It’s pretty simple — a QR code on your phone is scanned at entry, or you can carry a good old-fashioned paper copy if preferred.
The rule to be vaccinated to enter certain public spaces, or to provide a negative COVID test less than 72 hours old, has been in effect in France since July 21. As of August 9, the pass also became compulsory for long-distance train travel and to enter bars and restaurants.
While there have been some protests around the country against the introduction of the pass, the number of the disgruntled remains fairly small. Demonstrators seem to be an amalgam of those from the far left and far right of politics.
It was estimated about 200,000 people marched against the pass sanitaire last weekend, but more than 7 million people have registered to be vaccinated since its arrival was announced. Politicians here make no apologies for it, with Health Minister Olivier Veran saying the government cannot put those who are anti-vax, anti-science and anti-state over those who respect distancing and have been vaccinated.
“There comes a time when enough is enough,” he said.
Transport Minister Jean-Baptiste Djebbari was at Gare de Lyon in central Paris on Monday morning, talking to commuters about the need for the pass.
President Emmanuel Macron has recently taken to social media platform TikTok to reach more young people and get his message out about vaccination. More than 63% of the population aged over 12 have been vaccinated.
“It’s a question of being a good citizen,” he said last week. “Our freedom is worth nothing if we infect our friends, neighbours or grandparents. To be free is to be responsible.”
Having lived in France for more than a year, and recently receiving five-year residency permits, it’s hard not to contrast life here with our friends and family in lockdown in Melbourne and Sydney.
The constant focus on hotspots and public exposure sites in Australia is hard to believe when we read the local news — it all comes down to the fact that the Australian government failed to secure enough vaccines last year to safeguard its people. We’re frankly surprised there isn’t more outrage at this simple fact.
Our lives are pretty much back to normal in France and most people have accepted the need for the vaccine pass as part of la vie quotidienne, or daily life. It will be in place until at least November.
The pass removes the need for lockdowns, and the government is showing leadership in the language used around its introduction. Infections here are still around 20,000 a day but the pressure has been removed from the hospital system because of the high number of vaccinations.
We are now watching Australia in anticipation of its next major public debate being around the need for a pass sanitaire.
With Europe now way ahead of Australia in terms of its response to the virus, we hope Prime Minister Scott Morrison is humble enough to learn from overseas — instead of insisting on an “Australian” response to everything — and is planning to implement a similar system for entry to public spaces as soon as possible.
France and many other countries were gracious enough to praise Australia’s initial response of quickly shutting its borders, but most people here now ask us when we’ll be able to return to our country of birth and are surprised when we say we really don’t know.
Meanwhile, my elderly parents, aged 88 and 90, have recently gone into a nursing home, and our granddaughter, who was three when we left, is soon to start school.
We’re hoping we can see them all again next year, but the approach to the virus in Australia still has a long way to go before we’ll contemplate booking a flight.
Jane Wilson is a former adviser to the Bracks and Andrews government, now living in France
‘Health Minister Olivier Veran saying the government cannot put those who are anti-vax, anti-science and anti-state over those who respect distancing and have been vaccinated.’ That’s it in a nutshell. But this argument only applies where everyone has ready access to safe vaccines. Due to despicable and lethal incompetence by the Federal government here, we are a long way from the situation in France and Singapore.
‘…it all comes down to the fact that the Australian government failed to secure enough vaccines last year to safeguard its people. We’re frankly surprised there isn’t more outrage at this simple fact.’
Dead right. There’s a lot of complaining and criticising but no absolute, well-warranted outrage displayed in or by the media, or even the populace, as we crawl towards…what? 30% vaccinated? This wretched, putrid bunch of ‘millions of doses are on their way’ scoundrels should be political cactus, but in the media we still read and hear about them as if they – Morrison’s bunch of self-entitled rort-ripping dandies and Barnyard’s party of public-trough-wallowers – are still legitimate in the field of governance and have a legitimate and even-money chance of winning, just have to lift their act a bit. This gang should have been written off already for its hopelessness. MSM coverage of Morrison and Barnyard going on about the cost of a climate plan which no one’s shown them could have been a send-up in The Shovel. But it wasn’t. A Labor government that stinking bad would have been skewered cartoonishly – Shovel-like – all over the Telegraph and Hun front pages; we’d be talking about it in the past tense already. Instead, the climate report’s disappeared off the web pages no matter how far you scroll, and we’re back to case numbers, exposure sites and hot spots, as Jane Wilson has observed.
I was about to make the same comment. Can you imagine a Hawke, Keating, Howard or Abbot opposition front bench staying as quiet as this lot has been in the same situation. Where the hell are they? Even today Chris Bowen was on ABC spruiking his new book. The interviewer actually asked how he found the time, LOL. He’s obviously not doing anything else at the moment. I wonder how many other Laborites are planning book releases. Trout Fishing In Australia anyone?
They enjoy the Watermelon Sugar too much to do anything difficult like opposing.
Yep. If you are too bereft of policies or simply too lazy to want to govern, those opposition benches are a pretty easy way to ‘earn’ a comfortable living.
Thanks Cap’n – seconded here also; saved me having to type out my own disgusted rant. What you said.
Particularly liked “…self-entitled rort-ripping dandies…” Well put.
I’m in a similar situation here in Singapore and I have to say I am so appreciative of the freedoms that my vaccination status has given me.
After another snap lockdown a couple of weeks ago, the rules changed on Tuesday so that only vaccinated people can dine-in at F&B venues in up to groups of 5. Hawker centres are still able to have non-vaccinated patrons dine in but a majority exist in outdoor and highly ventilated venues so the risk of transmission seems to be lower. Gyms have re-opened for vaccinated people as well.
It helps that the population here is extremely compliant, protesting is basically illegal and the vaccine rollout has been extremely efficient. While travel is still off the cards for most, it’s just nice to be able to socialise with other people and go back to some version of ‘life’.
The sooner Australia and the rest of the world gets over themselves and gets on with it, the better.
There are several examples in ‘our’ history of the community responding successfully to the danger of potentially fatal infectious diseases. I can recall my parents fronting up for the regular chest X-ray program that was designed to eradicate TB. I have a tiny scar on my arm from a smallpox vaccination. Some of the current vaccination reluctant residents should look at what smallpox and TB does to a person before they eventually die.
There is a bit of a finger-wagging tone to this piece. I’m all in favour of a vaccine pass, but they’re only of use when a large proportion of the population is vaccinated. The situations in France and Australia are not really comparable. Like other countries which had early success in combatting the virus (New Zealand, Sth Korea) Australia has been slack in vaccinating.
She’s entitled to wag her finer at us, she’s an expatriate.
And correct in her assessment.
Almost as if you are living in a country run by rational adults instead of fawning sycophants of commercial interests.
Very novel.