FRANCE MAY EASE COVID-19 HEALTH PASS RESTRICTIONS IN LARGE SHOPPING MALLS

Sat 04 September 2021:

If the COVID-19 outbreak situation improves, France may be able to relax health pass regulations that are restricting the activity of large shopping malls, Labor Minister Elisabeth Borne said on Saturday.

“The health situation is improving. If this is confirmed, we will be able to ease the rules,” Borne told France Inter radio, adding that this could be decided “in the coming days”.

French retail group Auchan has said that the introduction in France in early August of a health pass that customers must show in shopping malls with a surface area of more than 20,000 square meters hit its business at the start of the third quarter.

Under the Covid pass system, introduced progressively since mid-July, anyone wishing to enter a restaurant, theatre, cinema, long-distance train, or large shopping centre must show proof of vaccination or a negative test.

Thousands of people have marched in cities across France to protest the COVID-19 health pass that is now required to access restaurants and cafes, cultural venues, sports arenas and long-distance travel.

Many criticised the measure, claiming the French government was implicitly making vaccines obligatory and unfairly restricting the rights of the unvaccinated.

The protest movement has brought together conspiracy theorists, anti-vaxxers, former members of the “Yellow Vest” anti-government movement, as well as people concerned that the current system unfairly creates a two-tier society.

Despite the protests, polls have shown that the majority of French people support the health pass. Millions have received their first vaccine shot since French President Emmanuel Macron announced the measure on July 12.

France, where the daily average COVID-19 contagion rate has slowed, is battling a fourth wave of the pandemic, and the government aims to administer a third vaccine shot to some 18 million people by early 2022, a health ministry official said on Tuesday.

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