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July 29, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) — Less than a week after the French Senate adopted the law that will make the COVID vaccine mandatory for the healthcare professions as of September 15, together with a “sanitary pass” for all citizens aged 12 and over, the media run by France’s high chamber of Parliament published a story quoting senators who were angry at the way the debate took place. “We had the impression we were law-making with a gun to our heads,” said Senator Pierre Ouzoulias, of the communist group.

The communist group? Yes, it is partly the left that is standing up to President Macron’s tyrannical decisions forcing people to get the experimental injection — ostensibly for the health professions, and de facto for the rest of the population who will need to exhibit a less than 48 hours old proof of COVID negativity for such everyday things as traveling by long-distance train, enjoying a drink at a bar or restaurant terrace, going to the library or any cultural or leisure venue, indoors or outdoors, where more than 49 people congregate. Even non-urgent healthcare will be subject to the sanitary pass, as well as visiting family in hospital or in a home for the elderly.

To date, a number of representatives from the whole political spectrum have condemned the law pushed through Parliament at breakneck speed, with Macron’s “LREM” (La République en Marche” party) and the “Républicains” very limp “liberal conservative” party offering most support to the sanitary dictatorship.

Opposition to the measures is manifold, as recent demonstrations have shown: The hundreds of thousands who took to the streets in France last Saturday were truly from all quarters of society, and in this fight for freedom against powers that oppose the people, no-one is paying very much attention to the flag waved by those who resist, as long as they truly resist.

It is remarkable that “PublicSénat,” a media entirely owned and run by the French Senate, should have given a lot of space to Senators of various convictions under the title: “Sanitary pass: the senators criticize a text adopted ‘with a gun to their heads.’” “Part of the Senators are still furious at the way they worked on this bill,” wrote journalist Elodie Hervé.

This fact alone should lead the Constitutional Court, which is at present examining the law and has until August 5 to give its response as to its compliance with the French Constitution, to raise doubts about the extraordinary limits the text aims to put on individual freedoms.

It is not the first time that French senators have angrily complained about the way the executive has pushed its reforms through Parliament. Ouzoulias noted with irony: “The simplest thing would be for the president to convene Parliament to address both chambers at the same time and ask them to vote on his text.”

Over the last years, for instance, amendments introduced and adopted by the National Assembly or by the Senate have been overturned within hours by the simple expedient used by the government of presenting them again until it obtained a negative vote. With over half the members of the National Assembly and a good proportion of the senators often away for various reasons, including the COVID crisis, it’s just a question of waiting until representatives favorable to Macron and his government have the majority.

The sanitary draft law introduced by the government on July 19, just seven days after Macron announced the new measures to “contain” COVID-19 on French television, was rushed through the legislative process in six days, and would have been adopted even sooner if the National Assembly had not taken two days to examine the thousand amendments prepared in record time.

“PublicSénat” commented: “However, on the parliamentary side, this way of rushing the debates does not pass muster. ‘It’s complicated to work under these conditions,’ Marie Mercier of the Les Républicains group admitted. ‘I had the feeling that the debates were going the wrong way, that we were only talking about freedom and that we forgot to talk about health.’”

It’s an interesting point. The protection of freedom is certainly paramount, but in the case of the COVID vaccine, it is also a fundamental necessity to underscore the safety of the jab. While to date one half of the French population is “fully vaccinated,” the large number of people who do not want to get the Spike injection under any condition are mostly those who do not trust it to be safe — and many of these so-called “skeptics” and “conspiracy theorists” are precisely those who are in the front rows as far as witnessing those adverse effects are developing: health workers.

The health bill debate has shown the deep “contempt” of the French executive — Macron, and also his government led by Jean Castex — for the legislative powers, and their “total lack of interest in their function,” noted “PublicSénat.”

It said: “For the past four years, few texts have been adopted without accelerated procedure, with the notable exception of the bioethics bill. ‘Macron’s idea is to say that to be strong, you have to pass [things] quickly,’ added Pierre Ouzoulias. ‘In his eyes, parliamentarians are useless, especially in the Senate where we are seen as archaic, and therefore as uninteresting.’ Ministers followed one another, discussions were not possible and it was necessary to go quickly, summarized the communist senator. ‘It was like a “bed of justice” (after the habit of French monarchs, since Louis XV, of receiving parliamentarians for the first time in a deep, comfortable armchair with cushions). Macron makes decisions alone and we have to follow. This is not parliamentary work: We would have needed a month to study the issues of this text that affect fundamental freedoms. Here, we have the impression of law-making with a gun to our heads. If we did not vote in favor of this text, the government would have accused us of killing the French.’”

Sylviane Noël, of “Les Républicains,” called the whole process “simply staggering.” “For example, we obtained the text amended by the National Assembly on Friday morning, and we had to hand in our amendments by 8:30 p.m. on the same day.”

The Senate then had to hold hours-long sessions so that the government’s objective of adopting the text by the Sunday, less than 48 hours later, could be achieved. Speaking of “endless hours of debate,” Noël complained of having had the feeling of “not having a choice.” “This is not the first time the government has done this to us, we are getting used to it. But this time, I had the feeling of being in police custody — a police custody that goes on until you confess a crime. Here, it was a question of going on until we gave in on this bill.”

The Constitutional Court has until August 5 to examine the law: longer than the National Assembly and the Senat combined. This alone shows the aberration of the method used by the government to push its bill down the throats of the elected representatives of the French people. Already, the government’s spokesman Gabriel Attal has announced that the sanitary pass will probably enter into force on August 9 (and at the end of September for 12–17-year-olds), not even contemplating that the Constitutional judges might reject the bill — although hopes that this will happen are slim.

“I am confident that it will put a stop to this law that infringes on our fundamental freedoms,” commented Sylviane Noël. But it was “PublicSénat” that noted: “Here again, the referral was not done correctly. Socialist Patrick Kanner speaks of ‘deplorable’ debates where the appeal to the Constitutional Council has, again, been drafted precipitously, in one night.”

Things are now very clear: the only reason that the Parliament was convened to vote on the tyrannical bill was to give it an appearance of political consensus; the government would only take “yes” for an answer.

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Jeanne Smits has worked as a journalist in France since 1987 after obtaining a Master of Arts in Law. She formerly directed the French daily Présent and was editor-in-chief of an all-internet French-speaking news site called reinformation.tv. She writes regularly for a number of Catholic journals (Monde & vie, L’Homme nouveau, Reconquête…) and runs a personal pro-life blog. In addition, she is often invited to radio and TV shows on alternative media. She is vice-president of the Christian and French defense association “AGRIF.” She is the French translator of The Dictator Pope by Henry Sire and Christus Vincit by Bishop Schneider, and recently contributed to the Bref examen critique de la communion dans la main about Communion in the hand. She is married and has three children, and lives near Paris.