Some French health workers resist mandatory vaccine edict

PARIS — While most French health care workers are vaccinated against the coronavirus, a small but vocal minority is holding out. With infections exploding, a new law requiring them to get the shots is exposing the divide.

The French government, which has declared that the nation has officially entered its “fourth wave” of the pandemic, pushed the law mandating COVID-19 vaccines for health care workers, to protect hospitals and avoid a new lockdown. Government spokesman Gabriel Attal says the move isn’t meant to stigmatize reluctant health care workers but to limit risks to the vulnerable people they care for.

The law, adopted by parliament early Monday, also sets up a “health pass” for everyone in order to access restaurants and other public venues. Both measures have prompted intense debate and two straight weekends of protests around France. Health care workers in white coats have been among the demonstrators.

Many cite incorrect information about the vaccines circulating on the internet, worry about their longterm effects or want more time to decide. Several health workers said they took issue with the mandate, not the vaccines themselves.

At one Paris protest, some carried signs reading “My body, my choice,” and a health worker dressed as the Statue of Liberty called it an “act of violence” to force people to get vaccinated.

Céline Augen, a secretary at a doctor’s office, knows she may lose her job if she refuses to get a shot but protested Saturday anyway.

“I’m here today in favor of the freedom to choose to get vaccinated or not,” she said.

Solene Manable, a recent nursing school graduate who is working in a Lille hospital, said, “There are many health workers who don’t want to get vaccinated because we don’t know much about the vaccines.”

Scientists say that is simply not true anymore. The vaccines used in France — Pfizer, Moderna, Astrazeneca and Johnson & Johnson — were tested in tens of thousands of people around the world, and results of the studies have been shared with the public.