Macron’s anti-vaxxer bashing will backfire in France’s ‘lost territories’

Who are the ten per cent of the French population that Emmanuel Macron wishes to ’emmerder’ or, as we say on this side on the Channel, ‘piss off’? It is a question that is rarely scrutinised, certainly by the foreign press. Are the refuseniks the Gallic answers to Novak Djokovic and Piers Corbyn?

There is in France, as in Britain, a vocal and aggressive anti-vax movement who propagate all manner of wild conspiracy theories about the jab. But they are in the minority among the unvaccinated. On the rare occasions when the French media probe the background of the five million who have declined the vaccination they find that they are predominantly young city-dwellers, often unemployed or on low incomes.

The two regions that boast the best vaccine uptake (83 per cent) are the Vendée and Finistère in the west of France. In contrast, the two regions where people are most reluctant to be jabbed are Upper Corsica and the northern Parisian suburb of Seine-Saint-Denis, with just 65 per cent of the population jabbed.