French President Emmanuel Macron admitted failures in the country’s vaccination campaign and promised to speed up implementation, days after the government was forced to impose new restrictions on the coronavirus to stem a wave of Covid-19 that is sweeping the country.
“We were not fast enough, we were not strong enough,” Macron told Greek television channel ERT on Wednesday, in a rare admission of failure in Europe’s vaccination efforts.
“We don’t aim for the stars as much as others. I think it must be a lesson for all of us. We were wrong to have no ambition, to have no madness, to say: ‘It’s possible, let’s do it,’ ”said Macron.
“You can give this to the Americans, already in the summer of 2020 they said: we are going to pull all the obstacles and do it. They had more ambition than we did, ”he said in the interview,“ We had no‘I think that [the production of a vaccine] it would happen so quickly. “
He added: “Everyone, all the experts said: Never in the history of mankind has a vaccine been developed in less than a year.”
On Tuesday, the French president declared the vaccination campaign a “national priority”, promising to put the launch at the center of the country’s Covid-19 battle.
As of Monday, 9.3% of the total French population had been partially vaccinated, according to Our World in Data.
Last week, French Prime Minister Jean Castex announced new restrictions on coronavirus in 16 regions, including the metropolitan areas of Paris and Nice, as the country tries to contain a third wave of infections.
Outdoor social gatherings with more than six people are now illegal in France, as part of efforts to contain the Covid-19 outbreak in the country, an Interior Ministry spokeswoman told CNN on Thursday.
French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin told police chiefs on Wednesday to “be strict” with the rule of six, particularly in the 16 regions that are under confinement, according to the spokeswoman.
The new measures, which took effect on Friday at midnight, will last at least four weeks, but are less restrictive than the measures imposed in March and November last year.