After US President, Joe Biden laid out a plan to tackle the worsening pandemic in America with a raft of new vaccination rules last week, the big question on the minds of many is: Will mandating vaccines work?
Across the Atlantic, in France, its a gamble that the beginning to pay off. Despite a slow start to its vaccination rollout earlier this year, fuelled by supply-chain issues that culminated in a bruising public battle with AstraZeneca over delivery shortfalls and blood clots concerns, France finally got its program up and running in the spring. By May, the country reached it goals 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. Healthcare staff workers, a group of roughly 2.7 million people in France who are not vaccinated by Wednesday faces 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.
Despites its history as the cradle of vaccine science, France is home to pharmaceutical giants Sanofi and the Pasteur Institute, name for Louis Pasteur, one of the founders of modern vaccination French people have log been reluctant to embrace them. A Welcome 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 Institution 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 Castres, a political analyst at the Centre 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 lawmaker, protesters began weekly demonstrations against the health pass. On July 32, 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.