Beginning on Monday, people who are not vaccinated against COVID-19 are barred from restaurants, sports venues and tourists’ attractions in France unless they provide proof that they recently recovered from coronavirus.
Previously, unvaccinated individuals could provide a negative test to enter certain spaces; however, under the new rule, a negative test will no longer suffice. Unvaccinated people must prove they recently recovered from a COVID-19 infection or they will not be allowed to enter various venues or engage in a number of activities, The Associated Press reported.
The rule goes into effect just weeks after French President Emmanuel Macron said his goal was to “piss off” people who refuse to take the COVID-19 vaccine.
“I’m not for pissing off the French … Now the unvaccinated, I really want to piss them off,” Macron said in an interview with Le Parisien newspaper, as reported by CNN. “And so, we’re going to keep doing it, until the end. This is the strategy.”
“I’m not going to put them in jail, I’m not going to forcibly vaccinate them, and so, you have to tell them: from January 15, you will no longer be able to go to the restaurant, you will no longer be able to have a drink, go for a coffee, to the theater, you will no longer go to the movies,” Macron continued.
Macron criticized people who refuse to take the vaccine as “irresponsible” and said “they undermined the strength of a nation.”
“When my freedom threatens that of others, I become irresponsible,” he said. “An irresponsible person is no longer a citizen.”
Macron’s political opponent in this year’s presidential election, Marine Le Pen, criticized the president’s comments, saying that he was “unworthy of his office” and asserted that Macron was attempting to make unvaccinated people “second-class citizens.”
Government-implemented COVID-19 restrictions recently suffered a significant blow in the United States when on Monday a top judge in New York ruled Gov. Kathy Hochul’s mask mandate was unlawful and “therefore void and unenforceable.”
According to State Supreme Court Judge Thomas Rademaker, the New York Department of Health does not have the authority to apply the mandate and said the state Legislature would need to approve such an order.
Hochul has vowed to fight the decision, and said in a statement obtained by Fox News that it is her responsibility as governor to protect New Yorkers. She said the mask mandates “help prevent the spread of COVID-19 and save lives.”
