In the countryside, everything makes sense. That is why the most zealous are the walkers. Barely the return of the gauges announced for public events, this Monday, January 3, they immediately indicated that they would be applied for LaREM meetings, namely 2,000 people maximum indoors, and 5,000 outdoors. The vaccination pass will also be required, from its inception, in theory in mid-January.
Among the Republicans, we also want to be responsible. The vaccination pass will be requested at the entrance to meetings. LR deputy Guillaume Larrivé has just tabled an amendment to the Assembly to allow the parties to impose it. In addition, Valérie Pécresse was already asking for the health pass during her public campaign meetings before the LR congress. The candidate will also apply the gauges, even if she is already planning small-scale meetings.
However, the Constitution does not oblige them to do so. The supreme text protects political parties, which do not have the obligation to respect the gauges, nor to impose a health or vaccination pass at the entrance. In November 2021, the Constitutional Council thus exempted the organizers of political meetings from the obligation to present a health pass to attend meetings.
Thus, the National Rally will apply a form of “at the same time”, in accordance with the image that Marine Le Pen wants to give, that of a protesting but responsible candidate. There will be no vaccination pass in its meetings, but according to information from franceinfo, the RN will apply “proportional” gauges. “Those decreed by the government are absurd,” said a campaign executive. This choice of the RN prompted the party to postpone the holding of the first major campaign meeting of Marine Le Pen, initially scheduled for January 15 in Reims. It must be held on February 5, after the theoretical end of the established gauges.
On Eric Zemmour’s side, neither gauge nor pass. This was not already the case during the meeting of the nationalist candidate in Villepinte in December. Wearing the compulsory mask was not really respected by the more than 10,000 people present.
On the left, the Insoumis stick to the Constitution, and impose neither gauge nor pass. On the other hand, they will distribute, like the Communists, FFP2 masks to the participants. One way, too, to thumb its nose at the government. The executive still believes that these very protective masks should be reserved for caregivers.