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Health pass: is it compulsory in all shopping centers and supermarkets?

the essential
Go shopping in shopping centers with your health pass: this should be made compulsory from the beginning of August, announced the Government. Only people who have been vaccinated or tested negative will be able to access supermarkets.

This Monday, July 12, Emmanuel Macron announced the extension of the sanitary pass to public places with a large capacity for the reception of the public. This measure aims to curb the spread of the Delta variant, which has been causing the tremor of a new epidemic wave for a few days in France and around the world.

During the third wave of Covid-19, Jean Castex announced the closure of shopping centers for several weeks. In order to avoid reproducing this scenario, the Government has opted for access to these supermarkets only to people who can attest to a complete vaccination schedule for at least 2 weeks for vaccines requiring 2 injections, or 4 weeks for the Janssen vaccine. If you are not vaccinated, you will need to certify a negative PCR test carried out maximum 48 hours in advance in order to go to a shopping center, as a customer or as an employee.

The “large shopping centers” concerned

This Tuesday morning, the Minister of Health Olivier Véran announced on BFMTV that this measure would apply “to large centers”, and “not to supermarkets”: “When we say large shopping centers we will think of shopping centers or galleries in Paris. In fact, no, most of the large shopping centers, they are peri-urbanized, they are sometimes not even far from working-class neighborhoods, they are crowded on weekends. And so, the question that would potentially arise if the epidemic flared up, it was ‘do we have to close these malls for everyone?’ Or ‘can we leave them open with the health pass?’ “

“We are talking about areas that will be important, this will be defined within the framework of the bill.” These will be “large centers”, “and no supermarkets, “the Minister of Health blurted out.

It remains to be seen what is the concrete size of the “large centers” mentioned by Olivier Véran. During previous health measures in January 2021, shopping centers of more than 20,000 square meters had to close in the departments most at risk. This gauge was finally lowered last March to establishments measuring more than 10,000 square meters. According to BFMTV, shopping centers of more than 20,000 square meters would currently be affected by this obligation to present a health pass. This question should be decided in the next few days by Parliament.

Gontran Thüring, General Delegate of the National Council of Shopping Centers (CNCC) explains in the columns of FranceInfo that this measure will have “an economic cost”, since owners and managers of supermarkets will have to hire security personnel.

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