Faced with the proliferation of fake health passes, Prime Minister Jean Castex is calling on the prefects to strengthen checks on identity documents in bars and restaurants. The demand annoys the police unions.
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Jean Castex asked the prefects on Tuesday, December 21 by videoconference, it is necessary to strengthen the control of health passes in bars and restaurants. A hardening demanded in particular to fight against fake health passes which are circulating more and more, 182,000 false have been generated since this summer, according to the Ministry of the Interior.
But the police unions seem reluctant to this idea, explaining that the police are crumbling under other priorities during this holiday season. “If we take police and security forces to do health pass control, they are not in other sovereign missions of the state, deplores Stanislas Gaudon, representative of the Alliance union, and what is more during this period of end-of-year celebrations when there are relatively large population flows“.
To relieve the police, why not allow restaurant owners to check identity cards themselves to fight against fake health passes? The track is being considered by the government and could be part of the solutions, according to the deputy general secretary of the SGP Police FO Unit union Jérôme Moisant. “Lhealth measures are essential to this way out of the crisis“, he insists. “It doesn’t shock me that principals can temporarily carry out identity checks in conjunction with the health pass, and just for that purpose.”
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However, the idea is not unanimous with the police unions or restaurant owners. The government had also given up this possibility last summer when the law on the establishment of the health pass was voted on.