Return to normal life France officially ends public health emergency

After intense debate, the French Congress declared that the public health emergency will end on August 1 and return to normal life. (Reported by Qi Helen)

The French Congress passed the latest public health bill, announcing that starting from August 1, the lives of the French people will start a new page, the state of public health emergency has ended, and the government will no longer use the new crown epidemic as an excuse to implement measures such as curfews, city closures, and vaccine passes. The Constitutional Council also approved a new public health bill to lift the state of emergency.

At the beginning of 2020, the new crown epidemic began to sweep the world. In mid-March, French President Emmanuel Macron stated in a televised speech that he was fighting the virus, and immediately ordered the city to be closed. On March 23, 2020, Congress passed the Emergency Public Health Act, enabling the government to declare a medical emergency to take extraordinary measures to protect the population from public health disasters. The state of emergency was initially tentatively set for one month, and was extended again and again with the development of the epidemic until more than two years.

French Health Minister Braun said that health and vaccine passports will now be removed from people’s daily lives. However, the epidemic has not really gone away. The new bill gives the government the right to control border entry and exit according to the development of the epidemic, and extends the validity period of the two epidemic tracing tools, so that the government can trace the confirmed cases and contacts.