PARIS, France (LifeSiteNews) — Ever since showing a sanitary pass became compulsory for everyday activities in France to prove “full vaccination” or COVID negativity, constant checking of people’s QR-codes has proved to be both time-consuming and complicated, leading some regions and institutions to set up a visual method of controlling the compliant. Sanitary pass bracelets have been introduced in various locations, leading to popular protests against identifying symbols that many consider to be discriminatory, and yet another sign of the sanitary segregation that has been set up by President Emmanuel Macron and his government.
From the moment Macron announced an extended requirement for the sanitary pass last July 12, opponents have drawn a parallel between the yellow star Jews were forced to wear under Nazi rule and the QR-code that is now necessary to board long-distance public transport, go to a restaurant or a café (outdoor patio included), enter museums, festivals, fairs, and theaters, get non-urgent hospital care, or visit friends and relatives in hospitals and homes for the dependent elderly.
Such criticism was eagerly denounced as “anti-Semitic” by the mainstream media. But while it is true that, for the time being at least, there is no comparison between the persecution of Jews (and Catholics) under Hitler, the “COVID bracelet” can hardly be dismissed as not reminiscent of times when an outer sign was used to keep certain people from having ordinary public rights to live and move about in freedom.
One of the first headaches for the authorities was testing the people entering train stations, especially since slow regional trains do not require the sanitary pass. By the way, that’s how social credit works in China: lose too many points and you’ll not be allowed to use fast transport. Here in France, people are turning to shared cars en masse or learning to hop from one regional slow train to another to get from point A to point B instead of jumping on a bullet train.
Now special agents have been recruited in a number of railway stations to “pre-control” travelers on a voluntary basis. Having had their QR code checked, these “first-class” citizens are fitted out with a blue paper bracelet that will allow them to jump the queue when accessing their departure platform instead of showing their sanitary pass. Boarding a fast train without the pass means a fine of 135 euro (about 150 dollars) for first-time offenders, if caught.
In the northern city of Lille near the Belgian border, a wider system of “COVID bracelets” is being tested in bars and restaurants where the staff, responsible for checking every newcomer’s status, are worrying about “missing” certain visitors and thereby exposing themselves to the 1,500 euro fine for first offenders. (Multiple omissions can lead to a fine of 9,000 euros and the administrative closure of the establishment).
The idea is for staff to check that customers have a valid QR code and to equip them with a paper bracelet – with a different color and general QR code for each day of the week – that will allow them to move about freely in the venue whose name it bears or to return there during the day. Visiting another bar or restaurant would mean getting a new bracelet. The bracelet is linked to the sanitary pass and can be obtained by people who have “proved” COVID negativity by a less than 72-hour-old PCR or antigen test.
20,000 bracelets have already been ordered by catering professionals.
On paper, the system may not seem very invasive of privacy, as all visitors to bars and the like are supposed to have a valid QR code anyway, but its symbolic significance cannot be denied. It’s a far cry from what – for instance – Chartres pilgrims are familiar with: a colored, robust paper bracelet for easy identification, showing they paid their enrolment fees and are allowed to join the official march and bivouacs. This is not government-imposed apartheid between people who comply with a questionable rule and those who don’t.
In the Bordeaux region, a similar experiment was set up and halted within days after backlash forced its proponents to back down.
The professional Union of Hotel Trades and Industries (UMIH) of France’s Gironde department (region), of which Bordeaux is the capital, decided earlier this month to provide special “vaccine” bracelets to restaurants and bars whose regular patrons’ vaccine status was known to them. These repeat customers were given a cloth bracelet that would let them return to any of the establishments at will, allowing the staff to dispense with checking their QR code.
As restaurateurs are not allowed to check clients’ identity, and have no access to the reason why an individual has a “green” QR code, the scheme was set up in such a way that all clients wanting to join would voluntarily prove their identity and also give proof of vaccination. A spokesman for UMIH explained that this would avoid “vexing” patrons who come in often over the days and weeks.
The plan was a source of “incomprehension” and “controversy.” Shortly after it was presented to the press last Wednesday, a deluge of negative comments appeared on local news sites and social media. The UMIH received many angry phone calls from members of the public complaining about the “collaborationist” spirit of the Bordeaux hospitality industry.
“Collabo” is one of the more vicious insults in France today, as it refers to the voluntary and lucrative cooperation of some French citizens with the Nazi invaders during the German Occupation of 1940 – 1944. The new “collabos” are those who willingly enforce the laws of surveillance, segregation, and quasi-forced vaccination in the so-called “war against COVID.”
The fact that the bracelets distinguished between customers who were “fully vaccinated” and those who were not was an added grievance – even the sanitary pass does not go so far. For now, at least.
The COVID bracelet experiment in Bordeaux lasted exactly one night, after which UMIH decided to withdraw its scheme under pressure from the local institution representing the French government, the “prefecture.”
Officials from the prefecture of Gironde issued a statement saying the “conditions of serenity surrounding the experiment initiated by the UMIH of Gironde are not in place.” They added that the bracelets “are no alternative to the QR code,” recalling that all customers must be able to present them in the event of a police check.
“We don’t want to spark controversy,” Laurent Tournier, president of the local caterers’ Union explained unhappily, arguing that it had only tried to find “solutions” for hard-pressed professionals. “It’s a matter of health and freedoms,” Tournier stated, adding: “We don’t want to create problems; we just wanted to find solutions.”
Surreal videos are now in circulation showing groups of up to a dozen policemen swooping down on cafés and restaurant dining rooms to check the handful of customers enjoying a drink or having lunch – attendance is way down in many venues – and even blocking pedestrian roads with many outdoor patios before going about their business.
Citizens who are not prepared to get a COVID test every three days and who are even less willing to get the COVID “spike protein injection” are now forced to look at these scenes from the street, not being allowed even to get a cup of coffee on a café patio in holiday locations where the season is supposed to be in full swing.
The adverse reaction to the Bordeaux COVID bracelets is just one more proof that the French are profoundly opposed to the government’s policies, which are incoherent at best, since it is becoming more and more evident that the COVID jab is neither protecting a good proportion of the vaccinated against SARS-CoV-2 infection, nor preventing fully vaccinated people from going to hospital and even dying there, nor stopping the spread of the virus.
This Saturday, hundreds of thousands of French citizens from every walk of life once more took to the streets to protest against the sanitary pass, with a record number of more than 250 demonstrations all over the country and a steady high turnout all the more spectacular given that the vacation season is still at its height.
Official numbers put participation at exactly 174,503 demonstrators, with an admirable precision that certainly involved turning a blind eye to the large proportions of the crowds all over France. A short video is visible here.
Meanwhile, in neighboring Germany, having promised in the same way as Emmanuel Macron that the sanitary pass would not be required there, Chancellor Angela Merkel made it compulsory from August 23 in restaurants, cinemas, hairdressers, and fitness centers.
The Europa Park amusement park near Strasburg and the French border had already gone one step further: making visitors, children from age 6 included, wear differently colored COVID status bracelets, showing at a glance whether they had had a negative test, had recovered from COVID, or had been vaccinated.
The outrage was such that Europa Park was compelled to put an end to the system. Clients are now provided with only white bracelets, regardless of their status.