Deputies and senators reached an agreement this Thursday in a joint joint commission on the health bill, which ratifies the end of the exceptional measures against Covid but provides for a possible recourse to health controls at the borders.
The parliamentarians -7 senators and 7 deputies- have fully preserved the version of the text voted overnight by the Senate dominated by the right. The representatives of LFI and RN spoke against, the socialists abstained, we learned from parliamentary sources.
The Minister of Health, François Braun, greeted on Twitter “this consensus at the service of the protection of the French”. The bill still has to be voted on Monday in the National Assembly, then on Tuesday in the Senate.
The express repeal of the sanitary screw turns planned
The version validated in the CMP provides for the express repeal of the regimes that allow the introduction of restrictions on freedoms, such as confinement, curfew or health pass. A “point of satisfaction” for the LFI deputy Ugo Bernalicis.
It reintroduces a key article on health control at the borders, which had been deleted by the deputies by a conjunction of votes from RN, LR and a majority of the Nupes left-wing alliance.
The tight device built by the Senate LR rapporteur Philippe Bas provides that in the event of the appearance of a particularly dangerous new variant of Covid, the government will be able to impose the presentation of a negative test on boarding. A similar regime may be applied to trips to or from overseas communities, “in case of risk of saturation” of their health system.
Socialists and centrists lamented the abandonment of any reference to the vaccine as a justification, “a bad blow to public health policy,” according to the centrist group in the Senate.
“A path” for the reinsertion of suspended caregivers
The only change made in the CMP: the Government will be able to establish this health control by decree for two months, instead of the one initially planned by the Senate. Beyond that, a Parliamentary vote will be necessary. The text also creates “a path” for the reintegration of suspended caregivers, once the vaccination obligation is no longer medically justified.
“I think this article is arrogant and dangerous. But I don’t see how the High Authority for Health could decide for the reintegration of caregivers, so it is neutralized”, estimates Sacha Houlié (Renaissance), president of the Acts commission. of the Assembly
The PS senators, fervent defenders of the vaccination obligation, plan to seize the Constitutional Council on this issue, Bernard Jomier indicated. On the contrary, Ugo Bernalicis deplored that this provision “does not act in any way the claim of reinstatement of suspended personnel.”
Finally, the text makes it possible to expand the monitoring tools for the SI-DEP epidemic (until June 30, 2023) and Covid Contact (until January 31, 2023).
Source: BFM TV
