Christophe Castaner, Edouard Philippe and Olivier Véran traveling to the interministerial crisis cell on the fight against the coronavirus, Thursday April 30, 2020 (photo of illustration) – LUDOVIC MARIN-POOL / SIPA
It left for two months. The government is presenting this Saturday in the Council of Ministers the extension of the state of health emergency against Covid-19.
Adopted last March by Parliament, this state of exception allows
to government to take measures which would normally require a vote by deputies and senators, particularly in matters of home confinement, requisitions, prohibition of gatherings or even price controls on certain products.
In addition to the extension of these increased powers given to the government for the next two months, the new text presented this Saturday also includes new provisions.
Section 2 on compulsory segregation removed?
Consulted by several media and published in full by Public Sénat, the new text specifies that quarantine and solitary confinement may take place “upon arrival on national territory”.
The preliminary draft law also provides, in its article 2, for forced isolation when an infected person, by refusing in a “repetitive” manner the medical prescriptions of isolation, creates “a serious risk of infecting other people” . This decision would be taken directly by the prefect. But Prime Minister Edouard Philippe said Thursday at the end of the day in a video meeting of the group of LREM deputies, that this provision should be withdrawn.
“It would have been a hard point,” said one. “It is in line with the voluntary and responsible isolation that the Prime Minister advocated in his speech Tuesday” on the deconfinement, welcomed the deputy Sacha Houlié.
Creating a file
Another sensitive subject: Article 6 of the preliminary draft provides that the Minister of Health “may implement an information system for the sole purpose of combating the spread of the Covid-19 epidemic, for the duration thereof or, at the latest, for a period of one year ‘. In the same way, existing information systems can be “adapted”.
“The purpose of these information systems, which may in particular include health and identification data”, is in particular to “determine the persons infected or likely to be infected, the collection of the information necessary to determine the persons who have been in contact with the latter, the organization of medical screening biology examinations ”, as well as“ medical prescriptions for the prophylactic isolation of persons ”. The data from these information systems will only be accessible to “only authorized agents”.
An intrusive disposition, for LR
“Section 6 creates a new file that seems more intrusive to me than it was the StopCovid application“Said the leader of the senators Les Républicains Bruno Retailleau, for whom the government will have to give” assurances “.
Bruno Retailleau “also asks the Prime Minister to modify this text so that the mayors, the heads of companies, know exactly the rules of the questioning of their responsibility”, he indicated on LCI.
