The EU are on a collision course with the UK over vaccines.

Personally, I'd much rather be here than in the UK at the moment.

With 50,000 new cases in France yesterday and less than 4,500 new cases in the UK I know where I'd rather be.
But at least we're relieved that our relatives who live in France have each had both vaccinations.

Actually I am talking about Paris, Calais and Nice really Dinahmo when I say I’d be scared. Not much vaccine roll out in those places.

It’s like London was at Christmas. If you lived in Altrincham in Cheshire of course you wouldn’t have been frightened. You’d have been nowhere near the epicentre. Bit like where you are now compared to Paris.

Different fish back then if you lived in Southwark though.

Urm For most of us English living in France, it's not scary at all. Most of us, especially the retired, as we are, live in rural areas and have large of very large gardens. We don't need to go out to parks, or drive to the coast because we can just walk out of our doors - it's not a problem. We are old enough to be philosophical about not taking holidays, not seeing friends, or even not seeing family. Personally, I'd much rather be here than in the UK at the moment.

Having had difficulties in getting through to the local vaccination centre by phone (online bookings full) I tried my local pharmacie on Tuesday and was able to register. Wednesday phone call from pharmacie saying go to Lanouaille, Friday am for the vaccine. Hurrah. other friends have also been vaccinated now. Hurrah. We'll be catching up the UK.

RE Macron. Talked to a few friends, English and French - they all loath him, are quite vociferous in their comments and say that he is making decisions with no input from other politicians, or experts.

We think our jab will be Pfizer - just hoping that it's not the Russian one!

Uh huh ...

British taxpayers have invested millions of pounds into a Dutch vaccine factory at the centre of a threatened blockade by the European Commission, The Telegraph can disclose.

The Halix factory in Leiden was equipped to produce doses of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine after Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary, approved a major investment last April.

The money – reported to be in the region of £21 million – was meant to secure vital shipments to the UK. But Brussels has threatened to ban exports and on Thursday vowed there would be "no negotiation" with Downing Street, insisting that the doses should be diverted to European nations.

A leaked letter revealed that Oxford scientists urged a major EU nation to invest in the Halix factory alongside the UK last April, but the deal was never signed.

The European Union would have been likely to have secured millions of AstraZeneca doses had the Dutch government acted more decisively, sources suggested. An EU official admitted the bloc had yet to contribute a single euro towards the Halix plant.

If you go to the original WHO statement rather than just the headline, you'll be reminded that "Europe" in the WHO terminology refers to 53 countries ranging from Israel to the Russian Federation. They identify the remarkable solidarity across borders as well as the vaccine hoarding that is going on. They point out that only 60% of low to middle income countries are vaccinating while 100% of high income countries are.

Nowhere does it say that any of the rises are caused by M. Macron or any other leader stoking vaccine hesitancy, or getting the rollout wrong. So let's just bear that in mind, shall we?

Well the WHO isn't impressed with Europe's vaccine roll out.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-56600660

The criticism of the AZ vaccine has been heard around the world. Not by medics but by heads of governments.

I don’t understand where this is coming from if it isn’t a vendetta. The situation in France at the moment is not as serious as it was in the UK at the beginning of January, and with the vaccination programme underway I’m sure in a couple of weeks time the daily infections picture will look very different to now. It’s been a massive challenge for every country, and to target President Macron for allegedly doing a bad job is unfair, he’s got some things wrong but so has every other country, very much including the UK, where up to the vaccine procurement we were in a much worse position than the rest of Europe. One triumph does not exonerate our government, and a mistake about the AstraZeneca vaccine does not make Macron a pariah.

Ug Jean-Luc Mélanchon is a far-left politician. Would you really feel your point could be validated by a far-left politician in the UK? Honestly, hand-on-heart?
One opinion poll in France says 7 out of 10 people agree with what Macron has done. I don't give much weight to this as there is lots of evidence that the French say one thing to pollsters and do another. They criticise the politicians and then vote for them. From talking to my students and French friends I think most people feel it was a good speech and mostly a well-reasoned strategy, but it may not be enough.
As for your comment about 'sitting ducks with no vaccine in sight", that is just plain wrong and actually pretty unpleasant language.
We know what the roll-out is, we know how many vaccines are being done each day (up to 500,000).
I am not quite sure what to make of your comments about being frightened if you lived here. Whatever is behind them it doesn't feel like a useful or productive thing to say.
Just for the record, we are not frightened, we know how things actually are and your conclusions are way off the mark. Live here, speak the language, read the papers and watch television in French. It makes a difference.

Urmstongran
Maybe we should have read the Lisbon Treaty in more detail. ? It’s all there in article 122. I’m sure a lot of us have read contracts where there is something that we’re not happy/ sure about but reassured that oh that will never happen but our layers want it in
Well now it has happened.

and I have to use that term PippaZ because they speak for 27 countries)

I didn't say anything about you using it Urmstongran. Very strange thing to say.

What I did say or infer is that you are talking about the internal squabbles of a nation, not The EU are on a collision course with the UK over vaccines which was your - very political - OP.

"seconding our vaccines"

Next they'll be coming over here, taking our jobs and our women.

Sorry UG, but your attempts to show that you are just highlighting a story for discussion are not working for me. Just my opinion of course. I'm just chatting.

Good morning everyone.

Look, you didn’t like it when I posted what I’d read in the British press (the Guardian, the Daily Mail and the Telegraph) so I thought, okay - I’ll quote a politician (you laugh Mamie but there were others I could’ve picked and let’s face it, he must be popular with some French people because he was voted in) and views from 2 French newspapers (again, there were others!).

All in all I think I was able to demonstrate that Macron’s actions are not popular (and I don’t just mean the latest ‘non lockdown but pretty much an extension of what was there already’ or however you like to term it. I’m not just addressing you Mamie so please don’t think I’ve singled you out.

This vaccine ‘war’ is escalating. I think it’s scary. That was what I said in my OP. Now there’s talk of the EU (and I have to use that term PippaZ because they speak for 27 countries) taking over a British tax funded factory in Europe and seconding our vaccines, bought & paid for in more ways than one. And during this awful backdrop, Macron’s intransigence has meant that in real time, French citizens are (in Paris, Calais and Nice) like sitting ducks with no vaccines in sight. That’s why I said the other day, if I lived there I’d be frightened.

www.ft.com/content/1df6369a-3836-430d-8afd-1f3ff8ff5ee8,

No, it can't be possible.....UK MPs, including some in his own party, and some UK newspapers disagree with PM Johnson.

zut alors, it's almost like being in France ?

... too far

Quoting Jean-Luc Mélanchon's view of Macron ???
Seriously Ug that does not demonstrate a very informed view of French politics.
In France people take politics seriously, they debate furiously and politicians with opposing views (like Mélanchon) are very critical of each other. The actions of politicians are not laughed off, they are scrutinised carefully.
Some people think the measures announced are correct, some people think they don't go far enough, some people think they go to far. The debate and political and media scrutiny will continue. People will not just accept what he said because they like him or support his party.
I personally think that is pretty important in a healthy democracy.

PippaZ

Be honest Urmstongran, you just wanted a slagfest against the EU didn't you.

She wouldn't be the only one (if it's true).

But Urmstongran the French have always been critical of their leaders. I'm not saying it's wrong, but it would be possible to take an article from British journalists without any context.

There is no such thing as a united France, in the same way that there is no united UK. All societies become increasing fragmented under pressure.

The only way to deal with the media - in any country - is with a huge dose of sceptisism and try to dig down to real and provable sources.

Be honest Urmstongran, you just wanted a slagfest against the EU didn't you.

Reading the above where does The EU are on a collision course with the UK over vaccines. come in? By no means everyone in the UK believes what Johnson has to say either but I can't see where that would play a part in answering the OP but it would be nice to see some balance.

But you've got to love a French President who keeps chocolatiers open in a lockdown! Very essential.

There’s more. French newspapers (not British, note):

French media remained sceptical about Mr Macron's insistence that normality could return to France by mid-May.

"Lockdown, the sequel... and the end?" Le Figaro headlined its front page Thursday, while Le Parisien, the capital's daily, called Mr Macron's strategy "slowing without shutting down" even as "the situation has never been so dangerous or complicated".

Yet more:

In Le Monde, Solenne de Royer wrote that Mr Macron's "dramatisation" of the stakes was a blatant attempt to "mask the government's powerlessness against an out-of-control epidemic and cumulative delays since last summer over vaccination and intensive care beds".

Not Daily Mail rants. French journalists.

Sorry Macron but not everyone there believes you.

In France today, many parliamentarians had a pop at Macron and his decision making.

Here is just one:

During a turbulent parliamentary debate, opposition groups across the board savaged Mr Macron's go-it-alone Covid strategy.

Jean-Luc Mélenchon, of the leftist Unbowed France, called it a "disgrace" and a "masquerade".

"It really is April 1 today," he told MPs. "Everything has already been decided and we are invited to come and acclaim…the presidential monarch, the best virologist in France apparently, and modesty's best friend. We will boycott this vote.

"You are responsible before history of a health disaster the likes of which this country has never seen. You let the wave rise by aggravating everything."

Ouch.

Mamie

Ellianne if you look at this site
covidtracker.fr/
You can click on a département and see the figures. If you scroll down you can see the numbers by age group.

The one I clicked (Indre) has an incidence rate of 189/100,000, which is lower than some areas of the UK even now and low compared with much of the UK just a couple of weeks ago.

47% of cases are UK variant.

The 20-29 age group has the highest number of cases, followed very closely by 10-19. There are more in the 10-19 group than in the 60+ group. That's a similar pattern to the UK currently.

Ah! I'd forgotten that Chat is a fact-free zone for fluffy gossip, which cannot be challenged by anybody who doesn't get on with DM style.