PARIS
\nThousands demonstrated in cities across France on Saturday against tighter restrictions on people not vaccinated against Covid-19, as parliamentary wrangling continued over a draft law.
\nBut turnout was significantly lower than the previous weekend\u2019s demonstrations according to official estimates, with interior ministry estimates putting the national figures at half that of last week.
\nIn the capital Paris, the largest single gathering set off from near the Eiffel Tower, called by far-right anti-EU presidential candidate Florian Philippot.
\nOther demonstrations harked back to the 2018-19 \u201cyellow vests\u201d protests against President Emmanuel Macron\u2019s perceived favoring of the wealthy.
\nThere were also marches in major cities including Bordeaux, Toulouse and Lille.
\nPeople in the crowd chanted \u201cno to the vaccine\u201d or \u201cfreedom for Djokovic,\u201d seizing on the case of men\u2019s tennis number one Novak Djokovic, who is fighting the Australian government to compete unvaccinated in next week\u2019s Grand Slam Australian Open.
\n\u201cNovak is kind of our standard-bearer at the moment,\u201d demonstrator Pascal told AFP in Bordeaux.
\nHe was marching alongside parents with children at a tennis club in the western city, where he said the coach risked losing his job for refusing vaccination.
\nIn Paris, demonstrators bore French and regional flags, with banners bearing messages like \u201cit\u2019s not the virus they want to control, it\u2019s you.\u201d
\n\u201cIt\u2019s Nazism, it\u2019s apartheid, I haven\u2019t been jabbed and I\u2019m against vaccines in general,\u201d said Claire, a demonstrator in her sixties.
\nTwo others, Laurence and Claire, told AFP they were vaccinated \u201cbut we\u2019re against the pass for teenagers. We don\u2019t see why they\u2019re being vaccinated because they aren\u2019t in danger.\u201d
\nAccording to figures gathered by the police and released by the interior ministry Saturday, the turnout was 54,000 across France, compared to 105,200 a week ago.
\nDemonstrators had hoped to keep up the pressure after Macron\u2019s declaration earlier this month that he wanted to \u201cpiss off\u201d the unvaccinated with new restrictions until they accepted a coronavirus shot.
\nThe latest stage of that policy came into force Saturday. The government-issued \u201chealth pass\u201d has been deactivated for tens of thousands of people who have not received a booster vaccination within seven months of their first course of shots.
\nThe pass is required for access for everything from bars and restaurants to cinemas and other public buildings, as well as for travel on France\u2019s high-speed rail network.
\nThe government is working to transform the health pass into a \u201cvaccine pass,\u201d under a bill currently being debated in parliament, which will require proof of vaccination.
\nNegative coronavirus tests or proof of recovery from a bout with Covid-19 will no longer be enough.
\nThe tougher measures have been pushed hard by the government as it faces a wave of infections with the faster-spreading omicron variant.
\nOn Friday, 330,000 new Covid-19 cases were confirmed in France, with an average of almost 300,000 over the preceding week. But the pressure on hospitals has not grown at the same pace.
\nHealth Minister Olivier Veran has said omicron is less dangerous and patients ill with the variant need shorter hospital stays.
\nMPs in the National Assembly passed the vaccine pass bill to the Senate upper house in the early hours of Saturday.
\nIt is likely to be finally passed Sunday after back-and-forth between the two houses over questions such as the minimum age for the pass and whether proprietors should be empowered to check customers\u2019 identities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
PARIS Thousands demonstrated in cities across France on Saturday against tighter restrictions on people not vaccinated against Covid-19, as parliamentary wrangling continued over a draft law. But turnout was significantly lower than the previous weekend\u2019s demonstrations according to official estimates, with interior ministry estimates putting the national figures at half that of last week. In […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-239132","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n