Emmanuel Macron set for ‘bad year’ as France struggles to keep up with Covid vaccinations
Macron and France 'are failing' on vaccine rollout says Moutet
Emmanuel Macron has been warned he faces another “bad year” after the bad performance health officials put in in the early days of the coronavirus vaccination campaign. Latest estimates have put France in the last place as only 320 people were reported to have received the jab since it was first distributed on January 27. Journalist Anne-Elisabeth Moutet told talkRADIO: “Emmanuel Macron has got a problem which is basically France is completely failing at the vaccination campaign.
“We are literally the last country in the world in terms of numbers of people vaccinated. We have vaccinated, this is now a week, 320 people and Britain have vaccinated 980,000.
“Israel has apparently vaccinated 1/5 of the population within a week. America is over two million and Germany is not doing too badly.
“It’s a combination of not wanting to annoy the anti-vaxxers and not knowing how to organise logistics.
“France is the last in the list and that is going to be a serious headache for Monsieur Macron.”
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Ms Mouted reported officials from the Ministry of Health had been trying to defuse public tension claiming the vaccination programme will be rolled out slowly but steadily.
The French reported even suggested Mr Macron had attempted to exploit the threat of a hard Brexit in a bid to win back the support of the French public.
She continued: “There were people belonging to the Ministry of Health, doctors, who were trotted out saying, ‘it’s very good to be careful, it’s very good to wait.’ And public opinion would have nothing of it.
“I don’t know whether he was trying to solve Brexit in order to say, ‘look at the foreigners, it’s nice not to be like the foreigners. Don’t hate me,’ but I suspect he’s looking at a bad year. And he had a bad year before that.”
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Mr Macron’s last two years as President of France were a succession of clashes with the public over his proposed reform plans as well as a new controversial security law.
The coronavirus pandemic further incensed discontent among the French public as the number of fresh infections continues to grow.
Mr Macron placed the country in a state of emergency from October 17, with the restrictions only barely relaxed over the Christmas period.
But the delays in rolling out the vaccination programme have heightened concerns further limitations could be put in place until the scheme has gained ground.
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Mr Macron said in his New Year’s address on Thursday he would let “no one play with the safety” of the coronavirus vaccination.
But several healthcare experts warned the strategy the French Government is wrong.
National League Against Cancer chair and leading geneticist Axel Kahn told Europe 1 radio: “It is not suited to a situation that is so dangerous.”
Philippe Juvin, the head of the casualty department at Georges-Pompidou Hospital, echoed the sentiment: “As an individual, I would like to be vaccinated to set an example and show people that we don’t die from the vaccine, we die from Covid.
“And when we don’t die, we can get severe forms of it that are very disabling.”
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