Covid health passes will no longer be required for entry into all but 64 French shopping centres from Wednesday.
Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire announced today (September 6) that the health pass obligation will no longer apply to centres of more than 20,000 square metres in departments where the infection rate has dropped below 200 per 100,000 residents, and where cases have been falling for a week or more.
The number of shopping centres covered by health pass rules will therefore fall from 178 to 64 in nine departments, Mr Le Maire told BFMTV during an interview this morning.
Bruno Le Maire (@BrunoLeMaire) annonce que l'obligation de pass sanitaire dans les grands centres commerciaux sera supprimée si le taux d'incidence passe sous les 200 et est en baisse continue pic.twitter.com/ynya5rVpF1
— BFMTV (@BFMTV) September 6, 2021
It means restrictions will be lifted for centres in Isère, Loire, Haute-Savoie, Bas-Rhin, Paris, Yvelines, Essone, Val-de-Marne, Val-d'Oise, Hauts-de-Seine, Seine-et-Marne, Charente-Maritime, Gironde, Landes, Pyrénées-Atlantiques, Haute-Garonne, Hautes-Pyrénées and Pyrénées-Orientales.
People will still have to show a health pass to enter shopping centres in Var, Vaucluse, Alpes-Maritimes, Bouches-du-Rhône, Gard, Hérault, Corse-du-Sud, Rhône and Seine-Saint-Denis.
Departments including Yvelines, Essonne and Hauts-de-Seine (Ile-de-France) had already had their shopping centre health pass requirement annulled by the courts, which found that the restrictions in question did “not allow for adequate access to enable customers without a pass to buy essential goods and services.”
On September 2, employer federation Medef had demanded that health pass rules be lifted from all French shopping centres.
“This has not only resulted in a 30% or 40% reduction [in takings] in shopping centres where there is a health pass requirement, but as French people have not understood” the 20,000 square metre limit and the discretion of different prefectures, all “shopping centres’ takings are down 15%” said federation president, Geoffroy Roux de Bézieux.
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