President Emmanuel Macron told an emergency meeting with ministers that he was he was furious with the pace of the rollout
Credit: STEPHANE DE SAKUTIN /AFP
President Emmanuel Macron came under intense pressure on Monday to ramp up France’s snail-paced Covid vaccination campaign, which one top regional leader dubbed a "state scandal".
France, a country that prides itself on its world-class health system, launched nationwide vaccinations in late December starting with care home residents and older health workers.
But little more than a week later, a piddling 516 French had received jabs compared to around 240,000 in Germany and one million in Britain, according to health ministry figures.
"What we have seen is a state scandal," Jean Rottner, the head of France’s hard-hit Grand Est eastern region told France 2 television.
"Things need to accelerate," said the member of the Right-wing Republicans (LR) opposition party and a doctor.
"Getting vaccinated is becoming more complicated than buying a car. The French need clarity and firm messages from a government that knows where it is going. It is not giving this impression." He called for France’s centralised vaccination policy to be divested to regional authorities.
"Is France getting the dunce’s hat in Europe for vaccinations?" asked Le Monde.
"If the art of government lies in implementation… then we are living through a political crisis," added an editorial in Le Figaro.
President Emmanuel Macron of France has let it be known he is unhappy with the country's sluggish Covid vaccination campaign
Credit: JEAN-FRANCOIS MONIER/AFP
The slow rollout is being blamed on mismanagement, end-of-year staffing shortages, and a complex consent policy to avoid litigation in a vaccine-sceptical country in which 60 per cent of the population say they won’t get a jab, according to the latest poll. The vaccine consent form is 45 pages long.
Only French doctors can currently administer doses and the government has ruled out opening "vaccinodromes" in stadiums or sports halls.
France has also vehemently denied it has fallen behind neighbours because it wanted to hold out for a homegrown vaccine. One developed by French-owned Sanofi and Britain’s GSK is only expected to be ready later in the year.
Dominique Le Guludec, head of France’s medical regulator, said there was still insufficient data to approve the AstraZeneca vaccine developed by Oxford University and AstraZeneca.
"We prefer to wait another 15 days if necessary to have all the data we need on safety and efficacy," Le Guludec told BFM TV.
With criticism snowballing, Mr Macron called a crisis meeting on Monday with prime minister Jean Castex and other ministers at the Elysée to discuss the vaccine roll-out.
He let it be known on Sunday that he was furious with the pace, which he likened to a "family stroll" not "worthy of the moment nor of the French," according to Le Journal di Dimanche.
"I am at war in the morning, noon, evening and night," Mr Macron is cited as saying. "I expect the same commitment from all. This won’t do. It must change quickly and firmly."
But critics accused Mr Macron of passing the buck.
"The president appointed himself the generalissimo of the war against Covid but puts the blame on those in the frontline,", said prominent French Green politician Yannick Jadot. He accused the government of banking on the Sanofi vaccine whose lateness he described as a "French industrial fiasco".
Germany has been far quicker off the mark than France in rolling out vaccinations
Credit: Robert Michael/DPA
France has ordered 500,000 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, the only one so far approved by the EU. It is expected to approve the Moderna vaccine this week.
Gabriel Attal, the government spokesman, said France would receive a further 500,000 vaccine doses each week and would inoculate 14 million people by the summer. Jean-Baptiste Djebbari, the transport minister, put the figure at 26 million.
On Monday, the government insisted it was speeding up and extending phase one vaccinations to health workers over 50.
"You can’t judge the success of a six-month vaccination campaign after seven days," said Mr Attal.
Epidemiologist and government adviser Arnaud Fontanet said: "It’s going too slowly".
"But the real deadline is to reach 5-10 million (vaccinations) by the end of March," he told France Info, "because that’s the point at which you have a real impact on the spread of the virus".
The coronavirus has killed more than 65,000 people in France, the seventh-highest national toll globally. Among other measures to stem the pandemic, 15 northeastern and southeastern departments have imposed 6 pm curfews.
Mr Fontanet said that the infection rate was still too high to ease restrictions.
Restaurants, bars, museums and cinemas remain shut and it is unlikely they will re-open as initially planned on January 20.
However, France on Monday sent 12 million pupils back to school after the Christmas holidays as planned.
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