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Economy
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By La Provence (with AFP)
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Professionals in cafes, bars and restaurants are ready to take on a “obligation of means”, by allowing their customers to scan their health pass at the entrance to their establishments from August, but not to “systematic control” of the latter, they say Tuesday.
The day after the adoption in the Council of Ministers of the bill which provides, in the event of a breach of the obligation to control the health pass, a fine of up to 1,500 euros – much less than the fine of 9 000 euros considered but rebutted by the Council of State – the four employers’ organizations in the sector were still opposed to the very principle of the device. “We continue to believe that checking clients’ health passes is systematically impossible for our professionals”, Franck Trouet, spokesman for the hotel and restaurant independents’ union, GNI, told AFP.
The GNI and the other organizations in the sector, Union des Métiers et des Industries de l’Hôtellerie (Umih), National Group of Hotel Chains (GNC) and National Syndicate of Thematic and Commercial Catering (SNRTC) will express this position in a letter to Prime Minister, this Tuesday.
Accepted by professionals when nightclubs reopen on July 9, because “customers go there for at least 3 hours: making the effort to present a pass is understandable”, on the other hand, to have a drink in a bar or a meal in a restaurant, “it does not seem realistic to us to make the restorer bear the burden of a systematic control”, he developed.
“We are ready to provide our customers with the material means to scan the QR Code attesting that they are in possession of a health pass in order but in full service, when there are many comings and goings, we are not in a position to carry out checks “, asserted Mr. Trouet, for whom “it is up to the police to do it”.
Legally, “we do not have the right to ask for an identity document from our customers”, he argued. “We note that the fine has been revised downwards but it is the very principle of liability that we are contesting”, hammered the spokesperson of the GNI.
The bill, which begins its way to Parliament on Tuesday before a possible adoption at the end of the week, plans to extend the health pass – proving the complete vaccination, a recent negative test or immunization – in particular to cafes, restaurants and trains “from the beginning of August”.
There will be one “break-in period” of about “a week” in order to“support professionals” in its establishment, said Tuesday the spokesman of the government, Gabriel Attal.
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