Pistolpete2

We will be traveling to France for a number of weeks from Portugal early next month and will be staying in one place in Brittany and will be armed with AZ Covid Vaccination Certificates which we obtained from the Ministry of Health when in Grenada in the West Indies earlier this year, which are not in digital format.

We see the announcements today from the President regarding a tightening of procedures to encourage the rate of vaccination to rise and curb further covid cases and in particular the potential to be excluded from cafes, bars & restaurants as well as shopping centres if not in possession of the vaccination card with QR code or some other standard vaccination proof.

Just not sure what covers proof and how likely we will be to be able to provide our existing certificates for access purposes. Might we possibly attend the Mairie in our town to gain some sort of assistance to convert our certs to a usable format?

What do US visitors to France do I wonder right now, when they do not apparently have one standardised digital vax card?

EuroTrash

The trouble with non-digital certificates seems to be, how is it possible for anybody outside the country that issued them to check whether they are genuine or not?
There are so many fraudsters selling fake Covid vax certificates online for a few quid.
If you're in Portugal right now, you could see if Portugal will accept it and issue an EU Covid Pass (I think Portugal has started issuing them).
To be honest it'ts hard to see France issuing a digital certificate based on a foreign document they have no way of verifying, and you could potentially waste an awful lot of your holiday chasing your tail over it. The other option is to take a PCR test and use your negative result instead of a Covid pass.

EDIT I just found this:
https://in.ambafrance.org/Coronaviru...autorites-nbsp

Une vaccination à l’étranger avec un vaccin reconnue par les autorités françaises permet-elle d’accéder au passe sanitaire français ?
Pour des raisons de traçabilité, seuls les vaccins administrés dans le cadre de la campagne de vaccination menée sous l’égide du Ministère de l’Europe et des Affaires étrangères à l’étranger, avec des doses de vaccins prélevées sur le stock national, ont vocation à être enregistrés dans le système d’information national. Tous les vaccins effectués dans ce cadre ont vocation à être enregistrés dans la base nationale SI Vaccins Covid, une fois que le dispositif d’enrôlement aura été validé par le Ministère des Solidarités et de la Santé. Ce dispositif d’enregistrement donnera lieu à l’émission d’une attestation incluant un code QR (à intégrer, selon le souhait des usagers, dans l’application TousAntiCovid).

Pistolpete2

Indeed we got into Portugal or more specifically Madeira by tendering our Covid vax certificates to their Madeirasafe health scrutiny and after about a month they got validated - not sure how they checked them.

I've now gone back to them and asked whether they can assist with a Portuguese healthpass for France.

I see the access to ongoing testing but that could be an expensive routine unless we can somehow 'educate' certain supermarkets and restaurants that we are actually 'good to go' - I note that long haul travel might be subject to proof of vax too.

There is another concern:

Our AZ vax batches came from the Covax programme for poorer countries and were sourced from the SII in India. I have checked the batch numbers and they haven't been specifically dismissed, which was, so I understand, a reason that the UK was not automatically approved for the EU health card - namely that the EMA didn't approve certain AZ numbered SII batches used for the UK vax programme.

EuroTrash

I don't think you need a health pass to go in a supermarket do you? Just shopping centres, I thought.

Yes this thing about approval not having been sought for the India factory is a beggar isn't it (if that's the same issue you're talking about?). I understood the problem to be that as a consequence none of that factory's output is being accepted by the EU. The significance of the UK flagging up certain batch numbers is that those were the only batches from that factory that the UK bought, so people who received an AZ vaccination in the UK can check whether they are affected or not.
Guess who got their first jab from one of those batches...

Pistolpete2

Yep that's the issue I speak of - Serum Institute of India sourced vax. Not sure how I can wheedle my way to getting past that (again - so it seems) with a Portuguese-issued pass from here in Madeira.

May still be able to live life if we have access to markets and supermarkets but when in France we would want to typically do LESS banging the pot at home.

Hopefully we can still access free testing for most of the time to gain specific access as needed, even though this facility is being withdrawn.

It does still occur to me that in Dinan (Côtes-d'Armor), where we will be staying, there is a large student element that hang-out and I just can't see their exclusion being strictly enforced in August/early September until they get vaccinated - I defer to others on here for an assessment ref that.

EuroTrash

There's been very little detail as yet. Hopefully the pass will only apply to indoor tables, not if you eat outside on the terrace. So you just need the rain to stop...

Unfortunately free testing for non residents ended on 7th July. It's only residents who can get tests for free now, and that's going to be withdrawn soon. But the fees are very reasonable compared to rip off prices everybody has to pay in the UK for example.
https://www.service-public.fr/partic...juillet%202021.

I would be surprised if you can't find places that will let you in regardless. There was a bistro near here that remained stubbonly open. It had a board outside stating that it believed everyone should be free to make up their own minds and everybody should respect other people's choices, and it refused to be told what to do. I don't know how it got away with it, or alternatively how many times it got fined but it's in a sleepy little village so maybe that helped it pass unnoticed by the authorities.

Pistolpete2

I do appreciate your heads-up on this and its various elements - I think that we can now go ahead and (at least try to) make a fist of it all based upon existing plans and itineraries.

Indeed the testing costs in France seem far more reasonable and structured than what the UK has to offer which we had to consider just yesterday - 150 plus quid for two do-it-yourself tests (LOL!) to get out of quarantine even though fully-vaccinated with the same vaccines that the UK have used - hopefully there are changes afoot on that one.

G-J-B

So many questions left unanswered, but in discussion with some French people today, they seem quite certain it will include terraces, which surprised me. I'm not sure where their information came from.

If you choose to get vaccinated out of personal choice, that's one thing, it's quite another to effectively strong arm adults into it who don't want it, and altogether another to practically enforce the vaccination of our children. One of my kids turns 12 this summer , and I've seen no evidence to prove this new experimental vaccine we're all subjected to, is necessary for children. A lot of parents who are willing to get the jab themselves, do not want their children to have it. I foresee a lot of anger and protests happening, France is effectively created a two-tiered society, no matter what your stance may be.

I think they have to make a paper version available (I believe a paper one is valid in France), not all of us have smartphones. How they will organise this globally, I have no idea. I don't like mobile phones, my old relic rarely has any battery left on it and is usually set to off. Whilst a green passport is practical for myself and my wife, if we wanted to do something together as a family this autumn, we're impeded as we're not prepared to let our child have it yet.

How much will a PCR test in France be? I'm guessing around the 30 euro mark? Pretty expensive for unvaccinated families to go out and visit a museum, or grab a drink at a restaurant on a hot day.

There's a whole lot of questions that need answers, but I guess we just have to wait and see. It's possible by autumn none of this will get passed into law anyway.

Good luck to the OP - I've been on holidays in Madeira and Dinan - very different locations, but both very beautiful. Hope it all goes smoothly.

EuroTrash

Yes I thought he was way too vague about this. It makes a big difference. I can see restaurants kicking off if it's a blanket ban. Needing a pass in order to have a coffee on a terrace seems OTT.

Not sure I go along with that. It's about creating a safe environment for everyone. You get vaccinated to protect those around you, not just to protect yourself. I agree people should be entitled to choose to take the personal risk rather than take the vaccine but I don't agree that people are entitled to put others at risk because they themself chose not to take the vaccine. It's back to society versus the individual again isn't it, and where do you draw the line between social responsibility and personal freedom. It seems fair to me that an individual has the right say no to the vaccination, but that invdividual can't then also expect to mingle freely with the section of society that has chosen to protect each other..

Paper versons are equally valid but they need to have the QR code on them because the QR code has to be scanned.
All the paper certificates issued in France now, do have the QR code on them.
I have paper versions because I don't have the TousAntiCovid app on my phone.

According to the government website link I posted above, "43,89 € pour un test PCR, 25 € pour un test antigénique"

G-J-B

Apparently the person who told me about terraces requiring a green passport said they heard it on the radio this morning. Doesn't mean it's a given of course, but also doesn't sound promising.

I completely understand anyone who doesn't want this vaccine. Whilst I've researched it, and went ahead with it, I did so feeling like I was between a rock and a hard place. We were told time and time again by the media last year, that vaccines take many years to develop, and then all of sudden multiple companies all had their solutions to hand. There are instances in recent history where vaccinations have been rushed in other countries and had very bad consequences. I understand if you're in a vulnerable group, but if you're not, then the odds of anything seriously bad happening are incredibly low, and afterwards you should build up an immunity better than any vaccine can provide.
Pretending you still have a choice whether you want the vaccine, whilst basically excluding a person from all normal aspects of society isn't really a choice, I think they should just call a spade a spade, and make it compulsory if they want to go down that road. Vaccinating children is a bigger concern, there doesn't seem to be enough research done around it.

QR codes are incredibly easy to fake, so I'm not sure how big the black market will be, but I will definitely be happy to have it in paper form.

The government can't keep on paying for 'free' PCR tests, but at that cost, it would be very expensive for a family to all get tested just to sip a cold drink on a terrace. Nothing to stop them going into a shop, grabbing a cold drink, sitting out in a busy public area, or bench and having a drink. If the guy on the radio was correct, it doesn't make any sense to me, but then look at the concessions that were made for the sake of football matches. There's lots of hypocrisies and contradictions in the whole approach and implementation of these measures.

G-J-B

According to an article just published on linternaute, it will include terraces.

Lieux de loisirs et de culture de plus de 50 personnes dès le 21 juillet
Café dès le mois d'août
Bar dès le mois d'août, même en terrasse
Restaurant dès le mois d'août
Cinéma dès le mois d'août
Théâtre dès le mois d'août
Parc d'attraction dès le mois d'août
Centres commerciaux dès le mois d'août
Trains longue distance dès le mois d'août
Avions dès le mois d'août
Cars aux longs trajets dès le mois d'août
Etablissements médicaux dès le mois d'août

Restaurant and bar staff are expected to police it themselves - obviously they're not happy about it.

Chatter Static

Do you have any clue on how to change a non QR code certificate for one with.

I had my vaccines very early on but the two certificates lack QR codes.

EuroTrash

Try here https://attestation-vaccin.ameli.fr/

Chatter Static

Thanky….. you