French Letter: Want a Covid passport or ‘Pass Sanitaire’? Don’t ask Amelie

It suddenly occurred to me the other day that if I wanted to continue to participate in the wild social whirl that is central Brittany, I had better get myself a Covid passport, or pass sanitaire. 

Stupidly, I had assumed the document they gave me after I received my second jab, labelled Certificat de Vaccination Covid-19, was all that was required. It wasn’t. What I needed was a Certificat Covid Numérique UE –­ an entirely different animal – issued by the French health ministry on behalf of the European Union. 

Armed with this, I would be able to flounce past the bouncers in our local nightclub or take my seat in the neighbourhood cinema for the latest Marvel movie or, more likely, go for a drink at our one real-life brasserie, Les Fous, whose signature beer, Orson, drawn straight from the pump, is as good as anything by Fullers, Theakston or Shepherd Neame. 

But I had to get my skates on. The new pass sanitaire regulations, announced ten days previously by President Macron, were due to take effect on Friday, at least as far as bars and cafés were concerned. All I had was a piece of paper with a signature at the bottom that looked as if the author’s hand had been jarred by a drunk the moment he put pen to paper. 

I went online, logging onto my account with Amelie.fr, a government-sponsored site, “simple, fast and free,” that should have enabled me to convert my scrap of paper into a fully-fledged pass, complete with QR codes. 

Alas, Amelie – a cousin, I should imagine, of Alexa and Siri – wasn’t interested. My password wasn’t recognised. Nor was my four-digit personal code, and when I went through the lost password routine, it was to be told that someone else (i.e. me) had already taken my login name. I started afresh as if I was someone else, at which point I was asked to come up with a password that had upper and lower case characters as well as numbers and a symbol selected from my computer’s alt keyboard. I complied, only to discover that my choice was insuffisant. Instead, I was invited to endorse a random password, of 13 characters, generated by Amelie herself, which, however, when entered, was rejected on the grounds that it, too, was not recognised. I tried again, twice, at which point I was informed that my efforts obliged the site to block me for the next two or twenty-four hours – I forget which. 

What to do? Go to the pharmacy, my wife said. Having been ushered onto the Covid frontline, they had to deal with this sort of thing all the time. So off I went, arriving at exactly 2 pm just as the shutters went up for the afternoon shift. I rushed in and advanced straight to the counter ready to get my pass sanitaire. The pharmacist shook her head. “Masque, Monsieur,” she intoned, gravely, drawing her hand across the lower part of her face. Dam and blarst! as Just William used to say. I’d forgotten to put on my Covid mask. Back to the car – a matter of 30 seconds. But when I returned, a dozen or more newly arrived customers, all pensioners, were lined up in front of me. It was the post-lunch rush. This could go on forever, I reckoned, as they sought advice in excruciating detail and filled up their shoeboxes with pills and potions. 

Quicker by far, I decided, and more certain, to drive the 15 miles to the centre in Guingamp, where I had been jabbed, than to shuffle through the aisles in the pharmacy, following the direction of the arrows, to risk being told, “Désolé, monsieur, but we are not responsible for issuing health passes – you must ask at the vaccination centre”. 

Half an hour later, I drew up at the centre in Guingamp where (as keen readers might recall), the elderly doctor charged with giving me my first injection completed the paperwork and sent me to the recovery area without actually administering the vaccine, so that I had to alert a passing nurse and start the process anew. Thankfully, I was able to barge my way in, waving my documentation like Chamberlain returning from Munich. The security guard took my details and handed me over, reluctantly, to a portly health professional, who, having beckoned me to follow him, conferred with colleagues and disappeared, telling me he would be back directly.

While I waited, I noticed the hundred or so jabbees seated disconsolately in the recovery area. Without exception, they were in their twenties and early thirties. Almost certainly, they had applied to be vaccinated only after the latest regulations were promulgated. Without their pass sanitaire, they could have been rendered unemployable or, worse, banned from entering the town’s bars and discotheques. They looked grumpy but resigned. 

Five minutes later, my friend-in-need returned and, with a flourish, handed me my new Covid passport, which I noticed was inscribed in English as an “EU Digital Covid Certificate,” with the French translation appended below. 

“Marvellous! Thank you very much,” I said, automatically stretching out my hand. 

He drew back like a duchess from a dustman. Of course, of course. We don’t do that anymore.  Maybe I should have given him the elbow. 

So I am free. I can dance until dawn at Le Moulin. I can join the bustling throng at the All You Can Eat Chinese buffet in Morlaix. More to the point, I can go to the pub. The only problem is, my wife has only received her first dose of the vaccine. She isn’t due her second until August 6 and, under the rules, won’t be allowed to join the party until August 20. Is there a couples protocol that covers this? Is it guided by Covid etiquette? Perhaps I should ask Amelie.