The Minister of Health Olivier Véran indicated in the night from Wednesday to Thursday before the National Assembly that “5% of hospitalized patients” had fake health passes and are not vaccinated.
The fake pass kills, it’s reality
“The false pass kills, it is reality,” he told LFI deputies who rejected a strengthening of sanctions in the event of fraud, as part of the examination of the bill establishing the vaccine pass. “The measures of the law seem balanced to us,” insisted the minister.
The possession of a false pass must now be punished by five years’ imprisonment and a fine of 75,000 euros. Presenting a pass belonging to someone else or transmitting a pass to someone else with a view to its fraudulent use will be punished by a fixed fine of 1,000 euros, compared to 135 euros today.
No penalty if people are injected with a first dose of vaccine within 30 days
The deputies adopted a government amendment on “repentance”: people holding false passes will not be penalized if they are injected with a first dose of vaccine within 30 days of committing the offense. The Socialists but also Laurence Vichnievsky (MoDem) expressed their strong reservations, the latter evoking a “feeling of impunity” which could develop.
Identity checks in connection with the vaccination pass
The debates in the hemicycle were mainly based on identity checks in connection with the vaccination pass: in addition to the police, the managers of places and activities subject to the pass, such as cafeterias and restaurateurs, may under certain conditions. check it out, disposes of the bill.
LR elected officials denounced a “coping between the French”, and the Socialists demanded “to entrust the tasks of control only to the police”. Will it be necessary “to put the handcuffs” in the restaurant for example, asked Caroline Fiat (LFI). And Martine Wonner, muse of covidosceptics, to fear “a society of denunciation”.
But, replied Mr. Véran, “let’s not make (this control) an object of tyranny”: it is the same verification that is made by tobacconists when buying a pack of cigarettes by an adult. , he quoted, assuring that “it is something rather banal” and which will not be “systematic”. “It is in no way an identity check within the meaning of the code of criminal procedure”, added the rapporteur Jean-Pierre Pont (LREM).
The LR will seize the Constitutional Council
The government adopted an amendment to further specify the conditions of control: it is “when there are serious reasons for believing that the document presented is not authentic or does not relate to the person presenting it” that ‘an official identity document may be requested. LR deputies, through the voice of Guillaume Larrivé, announced that they would seize the Constitutional Council on this point of the bill, in the name of “the protection of freedoms”.