- Macron’s wife admits her mind was ‘a mess’ when she dated her high school aged ex-pupil Yahoo News
- France’s First Lady Brigitte Macron Opens Up About Her Marriage To Much-Younger Emmanuel Macron NDTV
- Brigitte Macron: I thought 15-year-old Emmanuel would fall in love with someone his own age Yahoo News
- The Macrons are an exception. My teacher’s seduction scarred me The Guardian
- France’s first lady Brigitte thought Emmanuel Macron would ‘fall for someone his own age’ The Independent
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Macron’s pension plan advances despite strikes across France – The Associated Press – en Español
- Macron’s pension plan advances despite strikes across France The Associated Press – en Español
- French Protesters Pour Into Streets Ahead of Parliament Vote on Pension Overhaul The Wall Street Journal
- French protestors stage another round of strikes as committee of senators, lawmakers examine pension bill Fox News
- Macron’s controversial pension reform set for final votes despite nationwide protests FRANCE 24 English
- French Pension Strikes: The Party Is Ending for Retirees – WSJ The Wall Street Journal
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France hit by new wave of strikes against Macron’s pension reform
SAINT-NAZAIRE, France, Jan 31 (Reuters) – Striking workers disrupted French refinery deliveries, public transport and schools on Tuesday in a second day of nationwide protests over President Emmanuel Macron’s plan to make people work longer before retirement.
Crowds marched through cities across France to denounce a reform that raises the retirement age by two years to 64 and which is a test of Macron’s ability to push through change now that he has lost his working majority in parliament.
On the rail networks, only one in every three high-speed TGV trains were operating and even fewer local and regional trains. Services on the Paris metro were thrown into disarray.
Buoyed by their success earlier in the month when more than a million people took to the streets, trade unions which have been battling to maintain their power and influence urged the public to turnout en masse.
“We won’t drive until we’re 64!” bus driver Isabelle Texier said at a protest in Saint-Nazaire on the Atlantic coast, adding that many careers involved tough working conditions.
Others felt resigned ahead of likely bargaining between Macron’s ruling alliance and conservative opponents who are more open to pension reform than the left.
“There’s no point in going on strike. This bill will be adopted in any case,” said 34-year-old Matthieu Jacquot, who works in the luxury sector.
Unions said half of primary school teachers had walked off the job. TotalEnergies (TTEF.PA) said 55% of its workers on morning shifts at its refineries had downed tools, a lower number than on Jan. 19. The hard-left CGT union said the figure was inaccurate.
For unions, the challenge will be maintaining a strike movement at a time when high inflation is eroding salaries.
At a local level, some announced “Robin Hood” operations unauthorised by the government. In the southwestern Lot-et-Garonne area, the local CGT trade union branch cut power to several speed cameras and disabled smart power meters.
“When there is such a massive opposition, it would be dangerous for the government not to listen,” said Mylene Jacquot, secretary general of the CFDT union’s civil servants branch.
[1/16] Protesters attend a demonstration against French government’s pension reform plan in Paris as part of a day of national strike and protests in France, January 31, 2023. REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes
Opinion polls show a substantial majority of the French oppose the reform, but Macron intends to stand his ground. The reform was “vital” to ensure the viability of the pension system, he said on Monday.
A street march in Paris takes place later in the day.
‘BRUTAL’
The pension system reform would yield an additional 17.7 billion euros ($19.18 billion) in annual pension contributions, according to Labour Ministry estimates.
Unions say there are other ways to raise revenue, such as taxing the super rich or asking employers or well-off pensioners to contribute more.
“This reform is unfair and brutal,” said Luc Farre, the secretary general of the civil servants’ UNSA union. “Moving (the pension age) to 64 is going backwards, socially.”
French power supply was down by 4.5% or 3 gigawatts (GW), as workers at nuclear reactors and thermal plants joined the strike, data from utility group EDF (EDF.PA) showed.
TotalEnergies said deliveries of petroleum products from its French sites had been halted because of the strike, but that customers’ needs were met.
The government made some concessions while drafting the legislation. Macron had originally wanted the retirement age to be set at 65, while the government is also promising a minimum pension of 1,200 euros a month.
Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne has said the 64 threshold is “non-negotiable”, but the government is exploring ways to offset some of the impact, particularly on women.
Hard-left opposition figure Jean-Luc Melenchon, a vocal critic of the reform, said parliament would on Monday debate a motion calling for a referendum on the matter.
“The French are not stupid,” he said at a march in Marseille. “If this reform is vital, it should be possible to convince the people.”
Reporting by Forrest Crellin, Benjamin Mallet, Sudip Kar-Gupta, Leigh Thomas, Blandine Henault, Michel Rose, Dominique Vidalon, Benoit Van Overstraeten; Writing by Ingrid Melander and Richard Lough; Editing by Janet Lawrence
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Kyiv and Baltics hit out at Macron’s stance on Russia
French president Emmanuel Macron faced strong criticism from Kyiv and in Baltic nations on Sunday after he suggested Russia would need to be given security guarantees as part of future negotiations to end the war in Ukraine.
The comments, made in an interview with French television channel TF1, came after Macron held talks with US president Joe Biden during a state visit to Washington, in which they discussed Russia’s aggression in Ukraine and how they can continue to support Ukraine.
Macron said the two leaders had talked about the need for the US and Europe to prepare a “security architecture for tomorrow” for the region.
“This means that one of the essential points we must address — as [Russian] president [Vladimir] Putin has always said — is the fear that Nato comes right up to its doors, and the deployment of weapons that could threaten Russia,” Macron said.
“That topic will be part of the topics for peace, so we need to prepare what we are ready to do, how we protect our allies and member states, and how to give guarantees to Russia the day it returns to the negotiating table.”
The comments drew strong criticism in Kyiv on Sunday.
“Someone wants to provide security guarantees to a terrorist and killer state?” Oleksiy Danilov, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s national security chief, said in a tweet. Referring to the post-second world war tribunals, he added: “Instead of Nuremberg — to sign an agreement with Russia and shake hands?”
An adviser to Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the world instead needed security guarantees from Russia, which should be held accountable. “Civilised world needs ‘security guarantees’ from barbaric intentions of post-Putin Russia,” Mykhailo Podolyak tweeted.
Kyiv, which is itself seeking postwar security guarantees from western states, has rejected any suggestion that Putin should be rewarded with concessions after the conflict, given that Russia was the aggressor.
Critics have previously accused Macron of being soft on Moscow after he asserted that the west “should not humiliate Russia” over the war because it would still be a neighbour once the conflict was over.
Alexander Stubb, the former prime minister of Finland, which has applied for Nato membership as a consequence of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, said he fundamentally disagreed with Macron.
“The only security guarantees we should focus on are essentially non-Russian,” he tweeted. “Russia needs first to guarantee that it does not attack others. Only then can we begin discussions on [European security].”
Artis Pabriks, Latvia’s deputy prime minister, told the FT: “The idea that the Russian invasion [of] Ukraine can be ended by the west giving security guarantees to Russia is falling into the trap of Putin’s narrative that the west and Ukraine are responsible for this war and Russia is [an] innocent victim.”
Linas Linkevicius, former Lithuanian foreign minister, tweeted: “Russia has all security guarantees if it doesn’t attack, annex or occupy its neighbours. If anyone wants to create a new security architecture that allows a terrorist state to continue its methods of intimidation, they should think again.”
Macron’s comments also appeared to give credence to Putin’s allegation that Nato had “expanded” towards Russia’s borders by admitting former Soviet states, and that this was a legitimate reason for the invasion.
The alliance has robustly denied this claim, alongside regularly restating its “open door” policy that any nation can make a sovereign choice to apply to join, regardless of its geographical location, and that Moscow has no right to veto applicants.
A French official said on Sunday that France’s priority remained helping Ukraine resist Russian attacks, to ensure its sovereignty could be restored upon the withdrawal of Russian troops.
The official rejected the idea that Macron was soft on Russia, pointing out that the French president had condemned atrocities allegedly committed by the Russian military and sent French investigators to help with war crime investigations. But a “new security architecture” for Europe” would be needed to avoid future wars, the official added: “Russia is not going anywhere and will need to be part of those discussions.”
As the war enters its 10th month, western officials have said there are no formal talks taking place regarding the end of the conflict. The US and other allies of Ukraine, including France, have said repeatedly that it will be up to Zelenskyy to decide on the terms his country would accept.
Biden said on Thursday he would be willing to speak to Putin if the Russian leader was serious about seeking an end to the war, which he said was not the case at present.
Russian officials later said they were also “open to negotiations in order to ensure our interests” but only if western countries acknowledged certain demands.
Uber files leak: Macron’s dealings may prompt parliamentary inquiry
France’s left-leaning and far-right opposition parties, emboldened by recent gains in the country’s parliamentary election, jumped on the revelations on Sunday night and Monday morning, describing them as a looming “state scandal” and potential evidence of a “collusion of interests.”
Macron never hid that he was an early Uber supporter. But company executives’ internal messages from 2013 to 2017 suggest that his backing went far beyond what had been known publicly — and on occasion conflicted with the policies of the left-leaning government he served at the time.
The documents are part of the Uber Files, a trove of more than 124,000 internal records obtained by the Guardian and shared with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit newsroom, and dozens of other news organizations worldwide, including The Washington Post.
On Monday, former Uber lobbyist Mark MacGann publicly identified himself as the source of the files. The Washington Post and other project partners previously had agreed to keep his identity confidential.
According to the files, Uber managers and lobbyists believed that Macron was willing to support them by pushing regulators to be “less conservative” in their interpretation of rules limiting the company’s operations, and by attempting to ease rules that hampered the company’s expansion in France. At times, Uber was even surprised by the extent of his backing, internal communications show.
Asked for comment ahead of publication of the documents, the French presidency said in a statement to The Post and other outlets that the “economic and employment policies at the time, in which [Macron] was an active participant, are well known” and that his “functions naturally led him to meet and interact with many companies.” Asked for additional comment after publication, the Élysée on Monday referred reporters back to its earlier statement.
“I knew that [Macron] was in favor of Uber,” said Alain Vidalies, who was France’s transportation state secretary from 2014 to 2017. But “I must say that even I am flabbergasted,” Vidalies told France’s public broadcaster.
Although the documents end in 2017, the year Macron was elected president, they directly relate to how Macron has tried to implement his agenda since.
Macron, who was reelected in April, has sought to liberalize the French economy — and, according to his critics, that has involved steamrolling anyone who raises concerns over the social impact of his moves.
That criticism is expected to find a bigger stage in Parliament during his second term, now that he has lost his absolute parliamentary majority, amid gains from the far left and far right. Far-left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon, a staunch critic of Uber and other multinationals operating in France, is now the public face of the biggest opposition bloc in the lower house of Parliament, where the possible inquiry would take place.
Mélenchon has regularly complained of the “uberization” of French society, an umbrella term used to describe ride-hailing and home delivery services, and he lashed out against Macron’s support for a sector that he views as having undermined worker rights.
Members and allies of Mélenchon’s party, France Unbowed, were among the most vocal critics on Monday.
Mathilde Panot, the alliance’s leader in Parliament, suggested that Macron had helped Uber in “looting the country” and criticized the president for having acted as a “lobbyist for a U.S. multinational aiming to permanently deregulate labor law.”
Aurélien Taché, a left-wing member of Parliament, said the files raised questions about “Emmanuel Macron’s conception of loyalty in politics, toward the government to which he belonged at the time and toward his country.”
According to the files, Macron was in frequent contact with Uber executives between 2014 and 2016 and strategized over moves that at times appeared to conflict with the objectives of then-Prime Minister Manuel Valls and others who advocated stricter rules for Uber and similar companies.
Marine Le Pen’s far-right party — which, despite her defeat in the presidential contest, won 11 times more seats in last month’s parliamentary election than it did in 2017 — similarly seized on the files, describing them as “the first scandal of Emmanuel Macron’s five-year term.”
But Macron’s allies — who still hold a simple majority in Parliament — appeared ready to defend his interactions with the company.
“Above all, he is the president who has allowed the arrival of a certain number of companies and indeed to promote the emergence of companies in our country, promote their establishment, support our reindustrialization, facilitate job creation. I believe that this is clearly the role of a minister of the economy and of a head of state,” Aurore Bergé, who leads Macron’s party in Parliament, said on French TV.
The Uber files may raise questions in France that go beyond the extent of Macron’s support.
The files also show that Uber used covert tech to thwart government raids during its global expansion. And as enraged taxi drivers, fearing for their professional survival, clashed with their Uber competitors on the streets of Paris in 2015 and 2016, some company executives viewed the physical confrontations as a means to win public sympathy and support.
“The most important question” now, wrote Cédric O, France’s former state secretary for digital affairs under Macron, “is whether or not the establishment [of Uber] was a good thing socially and economically.”
French projections: Macron’s centrists will keep a majority
PARIS (AP) — French President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist alliance is expected to keep its parliamentary majority after the first round of voting Sunday, but will likely have far fewer seats than five years ago, according to projections.
Projections based on partial election results showed that at the national level, Macron’s party and its allies got about 25%-26% of the vote. That was neck-and-neck with estimates for a new leftist coalition composed of hard-left, Socialists and Green party supporters. Yet Macron’s candidates are projected to win in a greater number of districts than their leftist rivals, giving the president a majority.
More than 6,000 candidates, ranging in age from 18 to 92, ran Sunday for 577 seats in France’s National Assembly in the first round of the election.
France’s two-round voting system is complex and not proportionate to the nationwide support for a party. For races that did not have a decisive winner on Sunday, up to four candidates who got at least 12.5% support each will compete in a second round of voting on June 19.
Following Macron’s reelection in May, his centrist coalition was seeking an absolute majority that would enable it to implement his campaign promises, which include tax cuts and raising France’s retirement age from 62 to 65.
Yet Sunday’s projection shows Macron’s party and allies could have trouble getting more than half the seats at the Assembly, much less than five years ago, when they won 361 seats. Polling agencies estimated that Macron’s centrists could win from 255 to over 300 seats, while the leftist coalition led by Jean-Luc Mélenchon could win more than 200 seats.
Sunday’s turnout reached a record low for a parliamentary election, with less than half of France’s 48.7 million voters casting ballots.
Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne said “we have one week of action, one week to convince, one week to get a strong and clear majority.”
“Faced with the situation in the world and the war at Europe’s doors, we cannot take the risk of instability,” she said, urging voters to gather behind Macron’s alliance in the second round. “Faced with extremes, we will not yield.”
Mélenchon, who had hoped the election would vault him into the prime minister’s post, did not accept the preliminary projections, insisting that his coalition came in first.
“Projections in numbers of seats at this hour make quite no sense,” he said.
Mélenchon urged the French to choose his coalition’s candidates in the second round and “definitively reject the doomed projects of the majority of Macron.” His platform included a significant minimum wage increase, lowering the retirement age to 60 and locking in energy prices, which have been soaring due to the war in Ukraine.
Even though Macron beat far-right rival Marine Le Pen in the presidential runoff, France’s parliamentary election is traditionally a difficult race for far-right candidates. Rivals from other parties tend to coordinate or step aside to boost the chances of defeating far-right candidates in the second round.
Projections showed that Le Pen’s far-right National Rally party could get 10 to 30 seats — up from eight five years ago. If it passes the threshold of 15 seats, it can form a parliamentary group and gain greater power at the assembly.
Le Pen, who ran for reelection in her stronghold of Henin-Beaumont, in northern France, praised Sunday’s results.
“Next Sunday, it is important not to let Emmanuel Macron get an absolute majority, which he will abuse to implement his self-centered and brutal methods and impose his anti-social project,” she said.
Le Pen called on voters to vote blank or not go to the polls in districts that have only Macron’s or Mélenchon’s candidates.
Outside a voting station in a working-class district of Paris, voters debated whether to support Macron’s party for the sake of smooth governance and keeping out extremist views, or to back his opponents to ensure that more political perspectives are heard.
“When you have a parliament that’s not completely in line with the government, that enables more interesting conversations and discussions,” said Dominique Debarre, retired scientist. “But on the other hand, (a split) is always in some way a sign of failure.”
___
Jeffrey Schaeffer in Paris, Daniel Cole in Marseille and Alex Turnbull in Le Touquet, France, contributed.
France President Macron’s centrist party poised to keep majority in parliamentary elections
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Despite a historically low turnout in France’s parliamentary elections, French President Emmanuel Macron’s party and its allies were expected just barely clinch a majority after the first round of voting, according to early projections.
Projections based on partial election results showed that at the national level, Macron’s party got about 25-26% of the vote, making them neck-in-neck with a new coalition comprising hard-left candidates.
France’s President Emmanuel Macron waves as he leaves the polling station after voting in the first round of French parliamentary election in Le Touquet, northern France, Sunday, June 12, 2022.
(Ludovic Marin, Pool via AP)
Still, Macron’s candidates are projected to win in a greater number of districts than their leftist rivals, giving the president a majority.
Some 6,000 candidates were running Sunday for 577 seats in France’s National Assembly in the first round of the election. The two-round voting system is complex and not proportionate to the nationwide support for a party. For French races that did not have a decisive winner on Sunday, up to four candidates who get at least 12.5% support will compete in a second round of voting on June 19.
FRENCH PRESIDENT MACRON REACTS TO TEXAS SCHOOL SHOOTING, SUPPORTS THOSE ‘FIGHTING TO END THE VIOLENCE’
Kitchen table issues have dominated the campaign, but voter enthusiasm has been muted. At Sunday’s turnout, less than half of France’s 48.7 million voters had cast ballots.
Far-left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who had hoped the election would vault him into the prime minister’s post, was among only a trickle of voters as he cast his ballot in Marseille, a southern port city.
Hard-left figure Jean-Luc Melenchon casts his ballot in the first round of the parliamentary election, Sunday, June 12, 2022, in Marseille, southern France.
(AP Photo/Daniel Cole)
Following Macron’s reelection in May, his centrist coalition was seeking an absolute majority that would enable it to implement his campaign promises like cutting taxes and raising France’s retirement age from 62 to 65.
Yet Sunday’s projection showed Macron’s party and allies could have trouble getting more than half the seats at the Assembly. A government with a large (but not absolute) majority would still be able to rule, but would have to seek some support from opposition legislators.
Polling agencies estimated that Macron’s centrists could win from 255 to over 300 seats, while Mélenchon’s leftist coalition could win more than 200 seats. The National Assembly has final say over the Senate when it comes to voting in laws.
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Mélenchon’s platform includes a significant minimum wage increase, lowering the retirement age to 60, and locking in energy prices, which have been soaring due to the war in Ukraine. He is an anti-globalization firebrand who has called for France to pull out of NATO and “disobey” EU rules.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
President Macron’s centrists to keep a majority: Projections | Elections News
Macron would need to secure at least 289 of the 577 seats to have a majority for pushing through legislation during his second five-year term.
French President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist alliance is expected to keep its parliamentary majority after the first round of voting, according to projections on Sunday.
Projections based on elections’ partial results showed at the national level, Macron’s party and its allies got about 25-26 percent of the vote. They were neck-in-neck with a new leftist coalition composed of hard-left, Socialists and Green party supporters.
Yet Macron’s candidates are projected to win in a greater number of districts than their leftist rivals, giving the president a majority.
Macron would need to secure at least 289 of the 577 seats to have a majority for pushing through legislation during his second five-year term.
Government insiders expected a relatively poor showing in the first round for Macron’s coalition “Ensemble”, with record numbers of voters seen abstaining.
“I voted for hope … so not for our current president,” said Michel Giboz, 71.
Ivan Warren, who voted for Macron in the presidential election, wants to see him win a majority.
“It’s important to me that we have a strong government, which allows us to represent France in the most effective way possible,” the 56-year-old computer scientist said.
Elections for the 577 seats in the lower house National Assembly are a two-round process. More than 6,000 candidates, ranging in age from 18 to 92, are running to win seats in the National Assembly in the first round of the election. Those who receive the most votes will advance to the decisive second round on June 19.
Following Macron’s reelection in May, his centrist coalition is seeking an absolute majority that would enable it to implement his campaign promises, which include tax cuts and raising the retirement age from 62 to 65.
‘Cohabitation’
The main opposition is a newly created coalition made up of leftists, greens and communists led by hard-left figure Jean-Luc Mélenchon.
Mélenchon urged voters to give his coalition a majority and thereby force Macron to name him as prime minister, which would prompt a situation called “cohabitation”.
The leftists’ platform includes a significant minimum wage increase, lowering the retirement age to 60, and locking in energy prices.
Though Mélenchon’s coalition could win more than 200 seats, current projections give the left little chance of winning a majority. Macron and his allies are expected to win between 260 and 320 seats, according to the latest polls.
The French far-right, led by Marine Le Pen, is expected to win at least 15 seats, allowing it to form a parliamentary group and gain greater powers at the assembly.
The parliamentary election is traditionally a difficult race for far-right candidates, as rivals tend to step aside in the second round to improve the chances of another contender.
Le Pen’s National Rally hopes to do better than five years ago when it won eight seats.
Results may also be impacted by an expected record-low voter turnout. Pollsters say less than half of France’s 48.7 million electorate is expected to cast ballots.
Will Biden’s mandates work? Macron’s vaccine pass gamble may hold some clues
Across the Atlantic, in France, it’s a gamble that is beginning to pay off.
Despite a slow start to its vaccination rollout earlier this year, fueled by supply-chain issues that culminated in a bruising public battle with AstraZeneca over delivery shortfalls and blood clot concerns, France finally got its program up and running in the spring. By May, the country reached its goal of partially vaccinating 20 million people — 30% of its population. But then it quickly started to hit a wall.
In July, with France’s vaccination rate stagnating and coronavirus cases surging, French President Emmanuel Macron imposed sweeping vaccination requirements for much of daily life.
As of August 1, anyone without a “health pass” showing proof of their vaccination status or a recent negative test, would not be able to enter bars and cafes, or travel long distances by train, Macron said. Health care staff workers — a group of roughly 2.7 million people in France — who are not vaccinated by Wednesday, face being fired or suspended without pay.
Macron’s move was a calculated risk in a country where a deep cultural belief in individual liberties and a distrust of government has manifested in vaccine hesitancy.
Despite its history as the cradle of vaccine science — France is home to pharmaceutical giants Sanofi and the Pasteur Institute, named for Louis Pasteur, one of the founders of modern vaccination — French people have long been reluctant to embrace them. A Wellcome Global Monitor survey published in 2019 found that one in three French people disagreed that vaccines were safe — more than any other country out of 144 surveyed.
During the country’s second coronavirus lockdown in December 2020, two separate polls carried out by Paris-headquartered Ipsos and the French Institute of Public Opinion found that around 60% of French people surveyed said that if a vaccine for Covid-19 was available they would not take it.
“Clearly, Emmanuel Macron took a risk,” said Bruno Cautres, a political analyst at the Center for Political Research at Sciences Po in Paris.
“He took a risk to say I will make the life of the non-vaccinated very difficult, which is a very, very, very dangerous statement for an executive.”
As the proposal went to French lawmakers, protesters began weekly demonstrations against the health pass. On July 31, more than 200,000 people took to streets across France, a mix of those opposed to the health pass and its restrictions on freedoms, and people reluctant to get vaccinated entirely.
Yet for all the noise, many more French people were voting with their feet in support of the pass, and extending their arms. On the same day, 532,000 people were vaccinated, according to France’s health ministry.
Despite some early opposition, Macron’s risk looks to be reaping significant rewards.
Immediately following Macron’s speech on July 12, there was a spike in vaccination appointments in France. Doctolib, the main platform for booking jabs in the country, saw 1 million appointments made in 24 hours. Thanks in part to its swelling vaccination rate — along with a massive increase in testing linked to the Covid pass, and the reintroduction of mask mandates in regions badly hit by the Delta variant — mainland France managed to largely sidestep the fourth wave that swept through Europe and the US.
A month into France’s new health pass regime, data from the country’s health agency show an overall decline in hospital and ICU admissions since the summer highs. And while public health experts are waiting to see if the decline will continue, many are cautiously optimistic.
“In the few minutes after the [Macron’s] announcement, there was a record hit in the number of reservations to vaccinate. And this continued also on the following days. And what we see now is that they’re still increasing,” Vittoria Colliza, a Paris-based epidemiologist at Inserm, the French public-health research center, told CNN in a phone interview in August.
“I think that in terms of incentives, this is really working. And the sanitary pass itself also has a second effect … the limiting of contact risk in our social daily life, so this should have an effect in terms of the number of cases.”
Today, France’s Covid-19 vaccination rate is among the highest in the world, with 73% of people having received at least one shot, according to Our World in Data.
In the US, vaccination rates have stalled. Only 62% of the US population has had at least one dose, according to Our World in Data, and the majority of those who are not vaccinated are not at all likely to get a shot, according to Axios-Ipsos polling.
Now the US is looking to replicate some of France’s success.
Last Thursday, President Biden imposed stringent new vaccine rules on most federal workers, health care staff and companies with 100 or more employees. Announcing the move, which could affect as many as 100 million Americans, Biden expressed frustration at the unvaccinated. “We’ve been patient, but our patience is wearing thin, and your refusal has cost all of us,” he said, acknowledging the new steps would not provide a quick fix.
The mandates represent a significant change in tack for the Biden administration, which previously tried to avoid widespread vaccine requirements. In the US, mask and vaccine mandates have predominantly been left to local authorities. But, as US vaccination efforts stagnated in recent months, the administration began to pivot to more coercive measures to get shots in arms. In late July, Biden announced that all federal employees and contractors would be required to get vaccinated, or submit to regular testing.
While some employers and labor unions have voiced their support for the new rules, many Republican leaders have said they will challenge the requirements for large employers to mandate vaccinations in court.
Other critics of Biden’s vaccine mandates argue that they will only “harden the resistance” among people already reluctant to get a shot.
Heidi Larson, the founder of the Vaccine Confidence Project, agrees that government coercion isn’t necessarily a silver bullet for converting the unvaccinated.
“At the end of the day, it [mandates] does increase uptake, but for those people who are hesitant, things like that make them even more angry. They dig their heels even deeper,” Larson said.
“We did some national research with a lot of people in the UK, and brought in the whole vaccine passport question, and it was fine for the people who were pro-vaccine and accepted them, but for the people who were hesitant, it made them even more hesitant, and more likely to refuse if they felt like they were being told they had to do it, or that it was some moral responsibility.”
Some countries, including England, have said they won’t go the vaccine passport route.
For those hesitant about receiving newly developed vaccines, broader action to encourage uptake is necessary, experts say. Information was “not very clear” about the vaccines, said Catherine Hill, an epidemiologist at the Gustave Roussy institute in Paris. “There were a lot of rumors of fake news about the trials,” she said.
Ahead of the new law, the French government tried to gear up vaccination rates through incentives and public health appeals — an effort they’ve continued as the health pass has rolled out.
In August, the presidential Elysee Palace began a social media charm offensive aimed at France’s young people. President Macron took to TikTok and Instagram, posting uncharacteristically relaxed videos, some from his holiday home, calling on French people to get vaccinated.
“Get yourselves vaccinated if you love your relatives, your friends, your brothers, your sisters and your parents,” Macron said on Instagram, “because in getting vaccinated yourselves, you are protecting them too.”
The communications rethink coincided with a push to make vaccines more readily available. Seaside appointments were opened for those on holiday and walk-in sessions began, both of which epidemiologist Hill credits for helping with France’s Covid-19 U-turn.
“This [mandates] was really a change of paradigm,” Colliza said. “If you think about vaccine hesitancy and how authorities tried to handle it, at the beginning it was really a lot of pressure on explanations, on communication, and the aim was really not to oblige people but to convince them. And at a certain point, given the very large circulation of the Delta variant in several EU countries, authorities move towards something that is a bit more constraining.”
The final phase of Macron’s health pass law kicks in this week, with the mandate on health workers coming into effect.
As of August 30, public-facing workers, as well as customers, in establishments covered by the law were required to present a health pass to enter the premises. In France, nearly 1.8 million workers fell under this extension.
Anais Majdoubi, a 27-year-old employee at an escape game business in Paris, was initially hesitant to get vaccinated. She used to get a Covid-19 test every three days to show to her boss, a strategy that proved impractical when the French government approved the health pass law in August. She reluctantly got the jab, but fears for what it means for those still holding out against vaccination.
“I think we just have to be careful about people who are not vaccinated, not to treat them any different,” Majdoubi said.
“We shouldn’t be pointing our fingers at them.”
CNN’s Eliza Mackintosh wrote and reported from London, England, and Joseph Ataman, Saskya Vandoorne and Melissa Bell from Paris, France.