A few dozen demonstrators booing pharmacists and jostling the tent under which they were carrying out antigenic tests in a street in Montpellier. The scene, which took place on Saturday, July 31 on the sidelines of a procession against the sanitary pass, is one of three “Revealing assaults” the context of growing tensions against pharmacies, according to Philippe Besset, president of the Federation of Pharmaceutical Unions of France.
The other two also intervened in the context of a demonstration. In Nancy, a thirty-something claiming to have acted “Out of anger” broke the window of a pharmacy on July 24, while a pharmacy was set on fire in Fort-de-France, on the night of Saturday July 31 to Sunday 1er August, during clashes between a hundred demonstrators and the police. A vaccinodrome was also targeted that evening.
This “Escalation of violence against community pharmacies and professionals working there” was denounced in a press release, Tuesday, August 3, by all the players in the profession, calling for“Appeasement” and at “Respect for all health professionals”. “The green cross is above all a sign of peace”, assures Philippe Besset. For him, the increase in incivility dates from the intervention of Emmanuel Macron, on July 12, announcing the extension of the health pass; a revival is to be feared from August 9, when it comes into effect.
To calm people down, the pharmacist offers three measures: extending the validity of antigenic tests to 72 hours for non-vaccinated people, and to one week for people who have already received an injection, and the integration of self-tests. supervised at the sanitary pass. Three ways to unclog pharmacies and give the people working there a bit of a break.
Frustration of vacationers
Pharmacies, accessible without an appointment and having a storefront, have become symbols of the health pass, and therefore a visible outlet for its protesters. If violent actions remain isolated phenomena, “Verbal assault is [leur] day-to-day “, testifies Frédéric Abecassis, president of the union of pharmacists of Hérault. Even in his dispensary in Roujan, located “30 kilometers from Béziers and 40 kilometers from the sea”, he was verbally assaulted by a man demanding to walk past everyone because his mother had Covid-19.
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