Valérie Pécresse at a meeting in Paris, December 11, 2021. CHRISTOPHE ENA / AP

The Republican presidential candidate (LR) is following in the footsteps of the Republic on the March (LRM). Valérie Pécresse announced on Thursday 30 December in Nantes that her meetings would be held in accordance with gauges set for rallies. “If there are gauges for indoor shows, there will be gauges in my meetings,” Ms. Pécresse assured, after a visit to the Nantes police station.

“There will also be [sanitary] passes, as in concert halls. There will be no exception: we will be exemplary,” added the president of the Ile-de-France Regional Council, who was accompanied by LR DEPUTY Eric Ciotti.

“I want to do everything to avoid the confinement of the vaccinated: it would seem unfair to them. Everything must be done to avoid further confinement and I call for vaccination,” the candidate also added.

The idea divides the candidates

By announcing on Monday limitations for gatherings – maximum 2,000 people indoors and 5,000 outdoors – the prime Minister, Jean Castex, had recalled that the French Constitution did not allow to set gauges, nor to impose sanitary pass, to political meetings and places of worship.

Read also Presidential and Covid-19: the meetings of Marine Le Pen, Eric Zemmour and Jean-Luc Mélenchon will not have a gauge

The idea of applying these gauges to election meetings divides presidential candidates. The Rassemblement national, La France insoumise and Eric Zemmour’s team are opposed to it, while the presidential party LRM has announced that it will apply these gauges in its future public rallies.

On Wednesday, the Minister of health, Olivier Véran, said he was “in favor”, but “with uncertainty about the legal aspect”, of an amendment by the deputy LR Guillaume Larrivé giving the possibility to the organizers of large political rallies to demand a vaccination pass and to set a gauge. After lively exchanges, the amendment was adopted in the evening, but without its part on gauges, a consultation is underway between the Minister of the Interior and the political formations.

Responding to the attacks of the presidential majority regarding its passivity in the face of the health crisis, Valérie Pécresse said on the contrary “totally proactive”. “The majority may have short memories. It was I who brought the masks, who took all the measures to secure public transport and I am fighting not to close them on the night of December 31, ” she assured.

Le Monde avec AFP

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