“The basic idea was not to get vaccinated!” A few more weeks ago, Jules*, 20, would never have imagined pushing the door of a vaccination center one day. But the little sentence dropped by Emmanuel Macron, on his wish to“annoy” the unvaccinated, touched “personally” this business school student in Rennes (Ille-et-Vilaine). “It’s not possible… His technique worked”, he notes with dismay. On January 18, Jules therefore received his first dose of Pfizer-BioNTech in the arm “vs [son] thank you”, he who does not consider himself to be a person at risk, given his age and state of health.
Until January 18, the young man was part of the 4% of French people aged 18 to 29 who had not received any vaccine against the Covid-19 virus, according to the latest figures from health authorities. After experiencing a double summer peak with more than 300,000 first doses administered daily, the number of first injections fell sharply from September. In recent days, it has stagnated at its lowest with an average of 26,000 injections per day, even if the government boasts “the million” first doses carried out since the announcement of the entry into force of the vaccination pass, scheduled for Monday, January 24.
Like Jules, more than 150 people responded to Franceinfo’s call for testimonials, launched with these first-time vaccinators of the last hour. So why did you decide to take the injection after months of refusal, more than a year after the arrival of the first doses in France? For David, 28, this period has left its mark. “My life without the health or vaccination pass had become hell”, he blurts out on the phone. Since the start of the restrictions, this resident of Evreux (Eure) did everything possible to clear his head, far from his gym, which had become inaccessible without the precious sesame. “Of a happy nature, I withdrew into myself and the anxiety won me to the point of going to see a psychiatrist”, he confesses.
In October, he decides to book a stay in the mountains for the end of January. But the announcement of the application of the vaccination pass shakes his plans and deteriorates his mental health a little more. “Under antidepressants and anxiolytics”, David has “caught on [lui]“, set aside “[sa] fear of vaccines and agreed to uncover his shoulder for the first dose a week ago.
“It was totally out of coercion that I got vaccinated.”
David, first-time vaccinatedat franceinfo
This impression of “no longer have a choice”, Christophe, 54, felt it too. Until now, this inhabitant of Metz (Moselle) tried somehow to slalom between the health constraints, many for the non-vaccinated. Every week, the 50-year-old chained the necessary tests to attend the meetings of his association where he is a facilitator and the daily tests when he arrived at his employer, a large steel group located in Luxembourg, who regularly asked him if he had gone through the stitch box.
But the transformation of the health pass into a vaccination pass, which makes the negative Covid-19 screening tests obsolete to activate it, ended up getting the better of his stubbornness.
“With this pass, the government is doing much more than pissing off the unvaccinated, it’s a disguised vaccination obligation.”
Christophe, first-time vaccinatedat franceinfo
A pressure on the non-vaccinated that the government fully assumes. So despite his distrust of messenger RNA vaccines, Christophe,“resigned”, received his first dose at his place of work in early January, and still has to do many daily tests before the second dose, scheduled for February, to meet the demand of his employer.
Alexis, 46, talks about “huge anger” who has lived there since the words of the Head of State. This resident of Nantes also says to himself “shocked” and “insulted”, especially since he has been compelled since the start of the pandemic to respect barrier gestures and to test himself when necessary. So he regrets feeling “stigmatized”, to be seen as a “irresponsible” Who “no longer a citizen“, to use another controversial expression of Emmanuel Macron. “I am not a primary antivax, nor a conspirator”, proclaims this forty-year-old with scientific training.
“I wanted to prove that, without being vaccinated, you could keep your freedom, but there they [le gouvernement] go too far with this vaccine pass and their words.
Alexis, first-time vaccinatedat franceinfo
Alexis therefore agreed to be vaccinated, for fear of “fall in depression”. He, who had already poorly supported the first confinement, received his first dose at the start of the year. But he remains convinced that it is necessary “leave the doses to those who need them”, that is to say, according to him, people at risk and the elderly.
If for half of the respondents to Franceinfo’s call for testimonials, the arrival of the vaccination pass played a triggering role, for others, the motivation comes from their personal history. A trigger most often linked to an accident in life or a tragedy affecting their loved ones. Thus for Paule *, 70, and her husband, it was the passage in intensive care of their son-in-law, aged 41, placed in an artificial coma for four weeks, which convinced them. To this was added the death of the consequences of Covid-19 of the latter’s brother, aged 56. “The fear of side effects made us hesitate”, explains this new retiree living in Marignane (Bouches-du-Rhône), in one of the least vaccinated departments in France.
“With these two terrible news, we said to ourselves: ‘We can’t go back, we have to get vaccinated to protect our loved ones.'”
Paule, primo-vaccinatedat franceinfo
The first dose, received on January 13, passed without adverse effects for this couple of former bakers. “And my husband completely changed his mind about vaccinations to the delight of my nursing daughter”, smiles Paula.
For Jules, the student from Rennes, it was the fear of the gendarme that triggered the reversal. The young man had gotten into the habit of falsifying a health pass to continue going out to student parties. “But I was so stressed at the idea of seeing the police come into the bar or the restaurant that it spoiled all the pleasure of the outing”, he admits. However, with the arrival of the vaccination pass, the identity check is delegated to the managers of the place, under certain conditions, thus multiplying the probability for Jules to be unmasked. A risk he no longer wants to take.
As for Arnaud, 33, he had not planned to take action before the end of the pandemic, although he had advised his elderly and at-risk parents to do so. “Neither the vaccination pass nor the threat of forfeiture of citizenship would have pushed me there”, he assures. However, the young man, very athletic, has been aiming for a few years to become a volunteer firefighter. A project constantly postponed with the health crisis.
Recently installed in the Landes, he went to introduce himself to the fire chief of the neighboring barracks, giving the following speech: “I’m waiting for the Covid to pass and for the vaccine pass to no longer be compulsory to apply.” But the captain, who claims to deplore “many resignations of its volunteer firefighters, and even professionals, in the face of the vaccination obligation” of their profession, immediately accepted his candidacy. So Arnaud agreed to go to a vaccination center a few days ago.
While waiting for the activation of their vaccine pass, from Monday, everyone has already scheduled their second dose. But all aspire not to have to do the reminder, hoping for a lifting of the application of the vaccine pass by then.
* The first names have been changed at the request of the interested parties