All the way to the end of the “recommendation”… without going as far as an obligation.
Brigitte Bourguignon "asks the French to put the mask back on transport" while the 7th wave of Covid is blazing, she said Monday evening on RTL.
The Minister of Health, condemned to leave her post following her defeat in the legislative elections, sees it as a "civic duty".
But there is no question of going back to coercion, at least “at this stage”.
Caution is everyone's business: to limit the spread of COVID-19, let's increase our vigilance and respect barrier gestures.
For the over 60s and the most fragile, slots for the second booster dose are available everywhere in France.
pic.twitter.com/cKDFVOaZ3J
— Elisabeth BORNE (@Elisabeth_Borne) June 28, 2022
"The government was right not to make it compulsory to wear a mask", approved this Thursday morning on RTL the president of the Scientific Council, Jean-François Delfraissy.
Here are the reasons why the executive remains, for the moment, on this line.
Because the political context does not lend itself to it
“It is not the responsibility of scientists to say whether to go through obligations or not.
It is a political decision, ”poses the epidemiologist Antoine Flahault from the outset.
However, Emmanuel Macron and the government emerged weakened from the legislative elections on June 19.
A Minister of Health on borrowed time, a relative and not absolute majority in the National Assembly… Elisabeth Borne multiplies the interviews to build a coalition, and each vote will count to have each text adopted in Parliament.
In this context, the government would risk imposing a measure rejected by a large part of the opposition.
However, he could hope for public support.
According to an Ifop poll for Le JDD, 71% of French people say they want the wearing of a mask to be compulsory again in transport.
Because the French put the mask back on themselves
In recent days, it is more and more common to see faces partly hidden in the subway, the train, or in certain closed places.
A part of the French, fearing to be contaminated, put on the mask by themselves… which is however not more obligatory today than yesterday.
VIDEO.
“Recommended” mask in transport: “They should never have taken it off!
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“No one burned their masks at the end of the 6th wave and we know that adherence to measures and respect for barrier gestures tends to increase as the risk becomes perceptible, for example when relatives are affected” , analyzes epidemiologist Pascal Crépey.
Because this will, in theory, no longer be legally possible from August 1
Until now, the government went through the “law relating to the management of the exit from the health crisis” to impose the wearing of a mask in this or that type of place.
Or rather, more precisely, by a decree implementing this law.
However, this legislation will expire on July 31.
The government plans to present to Parliament a text maintaining certain measures, for example a health pass at the borders.
But the draft bill submitted to the Council of State does not provide a legal framework for the mask.
Read alsoAlmost 150,000 cases of Covid-19 in 24 hours: are simple health recommendations enough?
However, “in the event of a new epidemic wave and the absence of a formal legal basis from August 1, the Council of State could accept, as at the start of the health crisis (March 2020), the use by the Prime Minister of its general administrative police power - and even possibly exceptional circumstances - to justify an obligation to wear a mask in transport imposed by decree ”, advances the jurist Serge Slama, professor of public law at the University of Grenoble.
Because other countries didn't deliver it
Portugal was the first European country affected by a wave of the Omicron BA.5 variant, now the majority in France.
The mask is no longer compulsory anywhere since April 22, except in transport and hospitals where it remains imposed.
While the number of daily cases was climbing at high speed, several scientists had asked the government to reinstate the obligation in closed places (work, shops, etc.), even during outdoor events.
But the Ministry of Health considered that a “recommendation” was “sufficient”.
“The recommendations are not binding at this stage and we trust the responsibility of the French”, echoes the entourage of Elisabeth Borne, specifying that the government “continues to follow closely the evolution of the situation health and in particular the impact of this new epidemic rebound on hospital services".
A return of the mandatory mask would, in any case, have no immediate impact on the hospital, due to the delay between infections and serious forms.
