France denies EU Covid vaccine fiasco is 'best advertisement for Brexit'
France’s Europe minister Clément Beaune on Monday was forced to deny the EU’s handling of the vaccine crisis was “the best advertisement for Brexit”, instead claiming Britain was taking dangerous risks his country would not take due to its "difficult sanitary situation".
Reiterating doubts voiced in Germany and by French president Emmanuel Macron over the efficacy of the AstraZeneca vaccine, Mr Beaune said the UK had left itself heavily exposed with reliance on one vaccine - suggesting the strategy could backfire.
In an interview on France Inter, Mr Beaune was asked to comment on the fact that Britain had vaccinated "nine million people and France only 1.5 million".
“Isn’t European management of the vaccines the best advertisement for Brexit?” said the interviewer.
“I don’t think so,” said Mr Beaune. “This has nothing to do with Brexit.”
“The British are in an extremely difficult sanitary situation. They are taking a lot of risks with their vaccination programme. I can understand that. They have spaced out massively the delay between the two injections, up to 42 days. Our scientists tell us you mustn't do that," he said.
"They are relying primarily on one single vaccine, which is AstraZeneca, and the German authority has already said there are doubts about its efficacy for the over 65s. In the UK they're using it for that group.
"Therefore I believe that, clearly because they're in a difficult sanitary situation, they're taking these extra risks. I don't think our public would accept that we take all those risks against the advice of our scientists.
His comments came after Mr Macron on Friday suggested the AstraZeneca vaccine was "quasi-ineffective" for the over 65s. He was referring to Germany's vaccine committee, which last week recommended AstraZeneca should only be given to people under that age, citing a lack of sufficient data from the clinical trials.
That sparked an irate reaction from Sir John Bell, a leading member of the team that developed the Oxford AstraZeneca, who said the French president was lashing out to compensate for his country not having adequate supplies of the drug.
"This statement suggests he has not looked at the clinical or immunogenicity data which shows it is excellent in the over-65s," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme on Saturday. "There is ample evidence of strong antibody responses in this age group and you can be certain they will respond to the vaccine. Perhaps he is trying to reduce demand for the vaccine for some reason."
Mr Beaune denied France could have secured more vaccine doses by negotiating them nationally rather than collectively.
"Au contraire", he said, France would have risked falling further behind its neighours had it gone it alone.
“I defend tooth and nail the European framework of common purchasing," he said.
“Can you image Germany, France and Italy phoning labs to get (vaccine) shipments to the detriment of their neighbour?
“Would France come out better (without the EU)?” he asked. “What would people say if the Germans succeeded in having twice as many doses as us? I would remind you that the first vaccine (Pfizer) is US-German and that France has a privileged link with one laboratory Sanofi whose vaccine will arrive very late.
“If we had told the French we are waiting for Sanofi at the end of the year and haven’t negotiated with Moderna, Pfizer and AstraZeneca I think we would have made a political and sanitary error."
Beyond the EU vaccine row, President Macron's government is coming under rising domestic criticism for its inability to ramp up vaccinations.
According to the respected Covid Tracker website, the country only administered 26,585 doses on Sunday.
