Macron under fire from every quarter as vaccination programme stalls

The President was clear. The snail’s pace roll-out of France’s Covid vaccination programme was unjustified and could not be allowed to continue. “Things must change quickly and substantially,” he said.

Hmm. If only there was someone in high office who could ensure that the programme moved into a higher gear and reached more than a handful of the French people. Someone, say, like Emmanuel Macron, who has been head of state throughout the pandemic and in mid-summer appointed a new prime minister, Jean Castex, specifically to improve the Government’s handling of the crisis.

The backlash is gathering speed. The National Academy of Medicine issued a damning statement on New Year’s Eve that said vaccinations had begun “very slowly” and that that the outcome thus far was “hard to defend”. A political feeding frenzy ensued in which every party, of left, right and centre, greedily participated.

Back in February and March, Italy was the undisputed Sick Man of Europe. The rest of the continent looked on in horror as the Government in Rome, working with its cash-strapped health service, sought to contain the spread of the virus. But what quickly became apparent was that Italy was not alone. Spain and Belgium were equally stricken within a matter of weeks, and then the UK, which by the late summer was the most affected, with the highest number of deaths.

All the while, however, France was making its way up the chart, so that by today, with a death toll of more than 65,000, it is behind the British total by less than ten thousand, and catching up fast.

The biggest difference now between France and the UK, and to a lesser extent between France and its continental neighbours, is the seeming lack of urgency it has displayed in distributing the Pfizer vaccine – the only one as yet authorised by the EU.

By the turn of the year, a mere 352 people, out of a population of 67 million, had received the first of the two prescribed jabs. In “slowcoach” Britain, 944,539 injections have taken place, with another million set to go in the days ahead. On a per capita basis, the only country to beat the performance of the UK is Israel, more than a million of whose 8.8 million people have so far been vaccinated. Germany is in mid-table, having delivered 238,809 doses. France, by contrast, is at the bottom of the heap, comfortably out-performed by Estonia and Croatia.

The signs are that Macron has finally got hold of the situation and overseen an acceleration of the programme. But there is a long way to go.  Olivier Véran, the minister for health, announced yesterday that “several thousand” people, mainly front-line health workers and those at the most vulnerable end of the spectrum, had been vaccinated. That, though, still leaves the French effort lagging far behind the UK.

The big question remains, why? France had taken delivery of 500,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine by year’s end, with another million en route and more to come. And yet only now are supplies beginning to reach hospitals and doctors’ surgeries.

Normally, when there is an administrative foul-up on this scale, the default position is to condemn French bureaucracy – often a proxy for blaming France itself – and the likelihood is that this is the case here as well. Mañana may not be a French word, but it is a staple of the nation’s mental vocabulary. All t’s must be crossed and all i’s dotted before the French do anything. After that, it should be said, they tend to perform well. There is even a chance that a month from now they will have caught up with and perhaps even exceeded their rivals.

We shall see.

One potential issue that may have factored into the country’s slow response is the fact that France, though full to the gills with hypochondriacs, is chronically averse to vaccines of any kind. The annual flu-jab, though universally available, has one of the lowest take-up rates in Europe, and close to half of the adult population, according to recent polls, have said they don’t want to go anywhere near the Pfizer vaccine.

In theory, without some element of coercion, half the country could be Covid-free by the time spring arrives while the rest, un-jabbed, gradually succumb to the disease. It won’t come to that, of course. Pressure will be brought to bear. But there is no denying the extent of the problem.

In the meantime, while Britain takes the flack for identifying the latest variant of Covid-19, France has only itself to blame for its tardy response to the pandemic. The EU didn’t help. Brussels tried to take charge in July before quickly running out of steam. But health, beyond the certification of medicines, has never been part of the EU remit and, in the end, it was every country for itself.

Macron needs success, not failure, in 2021 if he is to remain front-runner in the presidential elections due next summer. The latest fiasco, for which he must surely take responsibility, could not have come at a worse time, just as the polls were confirming increased support for his position – or at any rate his personal credibility – across the country.

Like Boris Johnson, and indeed like most EU leaders, the French President will be hoping that time, and the vaccine, will do their work before his reputation incurs irreparable damage. Right now, it looks to be a close-run thing.