No jabs? Go to your room!

If I wished I was a New Zealander when the pandemic shit hit the fan last year, I wish I was French now. Jacinda Ardern didn’t mess around, didn’t dilly dally as so many leaders did in the early days. And now, with vaccinations readily available to everyone in France who needs one, Emmanuel Macron has decided to stop pussyfooting around the anti-vaxxers in his country.

Earlier this month Macron announced that it would soon be mandatory for anyone in France who wants to go into a bar, café or restaurant to show proof of vaccination. 

The next day a million French citizens who hadn’t yet done so booked appointments and began queuing for their first jab. 

Someone posted an English translation of Macron’s speech on Facebook. If there’s one thing I know it’s that nothing on Facebook should be taken at face value, so I can only hope the translation is accurate. My French, such as it is (which isn’t very much), isn’t up to the task of combing through French media reports to check the veracity of the translation, but I’m going to reproduce it anyway.

“I’m tired of people refusing to do the right thing, and prolonging this pandemic… I no longer have any intention of sacrificing my life, my time, my freedom and the adolescence of my daughters, as well as their right to study properly, for those who refuse to be vaccinated. This time you stay at home, not us.”

Want to go to a bar or restaurant? A cinema, theatre, museum or gallery? Get vaccinated. Want to get on a plane or a train? Get vaccinated. 

If, for some legitimate medical reason you cannot be vaccinated, you will have to produce a negative Covid-19 test result. If you genuinely do have a medical reason, your doctor will prescribe a test for free. If you don’t, no more free tests from the national health service for you. That will be €49, s’il vous plait.

If you’re a doctor or a nurse and want to continue working in the medical profession, get your vaccinations. Otherwise, no job or salary for you after September 15.

Macron apparently went on to say: “We cannot make those who have the civic sense to get vaccinated bear the burden of inconvenience. The restrictions will now weigh on others, those who, for reasons incomprehensible in the country of Louis Pasteur, science and the Enlightenment, still hesitate to use the only weapon available against the pandemic, the vaccine.”

Bravo, that man.

I would love to hear Justin Trudeau make that speech. Or Joe Biden. (Not much Biden can do about bars and restaurants in individual states in the US, but aviation is under federal jurisdiction. His administration could easily mandate that proof of vaccination be required to board a flight. If nothing else, this would probably reduce the escalating number of incidents of air rage.) Clearly this is not something Boris (I Don’t Care Who Dies) Johnson is ever going to attempt.

Although the majority of the French population approves of the measures, the restriction have, of course, been denounced by some in the media – more outside France than in – as draconian. (Can’t believe no wag at one of the UK tabloids hasn’t come up with “Macronian”.) Fuck them. And fuck the anti-vaxxers – in France and everywhere else.

People in Africa and elsewhere are dying because they have no access to the vaccines that these twats are refusing. Anyone who could easily be fully vaccinated, but refuses to do so out of ignorance or pure bloody mindedness should be sent to their room without, as Macron is proposing, a restaurant dinner.

My French may not be up to much, but I can understand and I fully endorse this statement of Macron’s: “Parce que la vaccination de tous les Français est le seul chemin vers le retour à la vie normale.” Except I would substitute “tout le monde” for “tous les Francais”.

No vaccine? No service. Fuck you.