IThere is frying on the line between Belgium and France. On Saturday January 8, the Belgian Prime Minister reacted to Emmanuel Macron’s comments on the unvaccinated. Tuesday January 4, the French Head of State said, in the columns of the Parisian, want to “piss off the unvaccinated […] until the end “. A vast controversy ensued, which seems to have passed beyond Quiévrain. Asked about this, Alexander De Croo therefore strongly contested the method borrowed by his French counterpart: “Clearly, this is not my vocabulary”, he declared.
But more than a question of vocabulary, it is above all the political consequences of Emmanuel Macron’s statements that disturb Alexander De Croo. In the columns of Evening, he warned of the danger of a “policy of division which would consist in going to annoy part of the population”.
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“I think for my part that we must annoy the virus and not annoy people,” he continued, while acknowledging that, “to annoy the virus, you need as many people as possible to be vaccinated”. “I still think that it is better to convince people than to force them”, added the Flemish liberal leader at the head of this country of 11.5 million inhabitants.
French President Emmanuel Macron said on Friday to “fully assume” his remarks made in an interview with the Parisian Tuesday, criticizing the non-vaccinated who “make their freedom, which becomes an irresponsibility, a slogan”.
Asked about the possibility for Belgium to transform its health pass into a vaccination pass as in France, the Belgian Prime Minister, at the head of a coalition of seven parties, replied that this solution had to be “analyzed”. “But, whatever the decision taken, it seems very important to me to add that the Covid Safe Ticket [pass sanitaire belge, NDLR] is and must remain an exceptional, temporary tool, ”he said.
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“The forecasts are still complicated but, as public authorities, we must be prepared for the fact that the coronavirus epidemic could last another two or three years”, he also estimated.