French President Emmanuel Macron is under fire after he said his COVID policy is to “piss off” the unvaccinated, whom he called “non-citizens.”
Macron made the offensive comments to Le Parisien newspaper Tuesday, just months before the country’s next presidential election.
“I’m not for pissing off the French,” he said. “Now the unvaccinated, I really want to piss them off. And so, we’re going to keep doing it, until the end. This is the strategy.”
His comments were condemned by the opposition: “Appalling.”
Macron’s party is pushing legislation that would ban unvaccinated people from public venues and transportation. They would no longer accept proof of a negative test or recovery from COVID.
“I won’t send them to prison, I won’t vaccinate by force. So we need to tell them, from Jan. 15, you won’t be able to go to the restaurant anymore, you won’t be able to down one, won’t be able to have a coffee, go to the theatre, the cinema,” he said in part.
“When my freedom threatens that of others, I become irresponsible,” he said. “An irresponsible person is no longer a citizen.”
Marine Le Pen, Macron’s main challenger in the upcoming election, blasted Macron.
“A President should not say that. The guarantor of the unity of the nation persists in dividing it and assumes that he wants to make non-vaccinated people second-class citizens, she said. “In April, I will be the President of all the French people.”
National radio host and best-selling author Todd Starnes said Democrats want to do the same as Macron here but are doing it more subtly.