COVID Coup: French National Assembly Rejects Macron’s Vaccine Passport in Shock Vote

In a shock move in the late hours of Monday evening, the French National Assembly rejected a push from the government to transform the nation’s COVID pass into a fully-fledged vaccine passport.

Rebuking Emmanuel Macron’s government, a majority in the National Assembly refused to examine a change to the law to allow the government to introduce a vaccine passport by January 15th.

The government had hoped to transform the COVID pass (Pass Sanitaire) — which has been available to those with proof of a negative test, proof of recovery from the Wuhan virus, or vaccination — into a full vaccine passport only granted to those with proof of full vaccination or recovery.

The proposed legislation would also introduce harsher penalties for forging vaccine passports — which has become increasingly widespread as of late — with those caught facing up to five years in prison and a fine of €75,000 (£63,00/$85,000), France 24 reports.

However, in what has been characterised as a “coup” in the French media, a coalition of opposition lawmakers joined together to refuse to examine the bill on Monday evening, the Libération newspaper reported.- READ MORE