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PARIS, January 13 (Reuters) – On Wednesday night, the Snat approved the bill strengthening the tools for managing the coronavirus health crisis in France, one of the main measures of which is the transformation of the health pass, currently required in many public places, in a “vaccine pass”, after having made changes.
The senators voted 249 votes to 63 in favor of the text, which they however modified compared to the version approved last week by the National Assembly.
Ahead of the debates, Grard Larcher, president of Snat where the right-wing opposition party Les Rpublicains (LR) has a majority, had indicated on France Inter on Tuesday that the senators would set “limits” to the text presented by the government.
Thus, the text voted on Wednesday evening limits to adults the obligation of the vaccine pass to access many public places.
In addition, the application of the past is subject to various health criteria – the impact of the coronavirus epidemic on the hospital system and the vaccination rate of the department, in particular.
In departments where the number of hospitalizations linked to COVID-19 is less than 10,000, the pass can only be maintained if the vaccination rate is below 80% or if the incidence rate is high.
Reuters learned from a parliamentary source that La Rpublique en Marche (LaRem), the party of President Emmanuel Macron with a majority in the National Assembly, was not in favor of these amendments, after MPs accepted at first reading to raise 16 years, against 12 years old, the age from which the vaccination pass will be required for extra or pre-school activities.
Deputies and senators will meet early Thursday afternoon in a joint committee to try to agree on the text.
If the committee’s discussions fail, the text will be examined in second reading by the National Assembly.
The government initially wanted the vaccine pass, which aims to curb the spread of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus, to come into effect on January 15.
(Rdig by Camille Raynaud)