After spending several months calling unvaccinated people “to responsibility”, Emmanuel Macron has taken it to the next level. The head of state now wants “piss them off until the end”, he said in front of the French during a meeting organized by The Parisian.
But who are they, these 4.7 million citizens over the age of 12 who have still not received, on January 4, 2022, the slightest dose of vaccine against Covid-19? Using data published by Public Health France and Health Insurance, franceinfo paints a composite picture.
The south of France lagging behind
Already observed several months ago when the vaccination campaign was in full swing, a strong geographic disparity remains *. The situation is obvious when looking at the map of vaccination by intercommunality. The northern half, central France and the west concentrate the most heavily vaccinated areas, the palm going to the island of Noirmoutier, where only 15.9% of the population has not received any dose. In the South, in particular in the South-East, vaccination is late: the intercommunality of Die, in the Drôme, has 38% of unvaccinated inhabitants. Several regions of Ile-de-France also show a high proportion of unvaccinated people.
The map shows high non-vaccination rates in some border areas, especially near Switzerland. This is a statistical bias: cross-border workers covered by Swiss health insurance have had the opportunity to be vaccinated in Swiss territory, thus escaping French statistics. Difficult, as it stands, to know how many people this represents.
In large metropolises, the poorest municipalities are the least vaccinated
Another observation is maintained over time: the strong correlation between the level of wealth of the inhabitants of a municipality and its level of vaccination. The data published by the Health Insurance allow a detailed analysis, at municipal level, for the metropolitan areas of Paris, Lyon and Marseille. And the finding is striking. Thus, the lower the median income of a municipality, the more unvaccinated people there are.
This is what the infographic below illustrates: each point represents a municipality, with the share of vaccinated residents on the x-axis, and the median income on the y-axis. The size of the dots depends on the municipal population, and the color, on its vaccination rate. For example, in the 16th arrondissement of Paris, where the median income is 40,400 euros, 20.1% of the population is not vaccinated. Against 39.1% in Saint-Denis, where the median income is only 15,270 euros.
Vaccination uneven from one age group to another
What about the age of the French who have so far not received a dose of vaccine? The most represented age group is, unsurprisingly, that of 5-11 years old, only authorized since December 2021 to receive an injection. As of January 4, 2022, these unvaccinated children represent 5.7 million people, or 98.8% of their age group.
In addition to this age group, there are 913,700 unvaccinated adolescents aged 12 to 17, and nearly 855,000 people aged 30 to 39. On the side of the oldest, while less than 64,000 people aged 70 to 79 years have not received any dose, there are 503 000 over 80 year.
But looking at these numbers as a proportion of each age group is also instructive. There are thus more than 12% of people over 80, a population particularly at risk of Covid-19, who have not received any dose of vaccine.
* For technical reasons, we could not represent overseas on this map.