Watch: French MP factchecked on UK jabs record

France’s vaccine rollout has had its difficulties in recent months. In early January, the Mail on Sunday reported the ‘French are at better at torching cars than giving Covid vaccinations’ after vandals burned 861 vehicles on New Year’s Eve – more than twice the number of people inoculated over the last five days of December. Subsequent efforts to address rampant vaccine hesitancy were not hindered by President Emmanuel Macron, who claimed the AstraZeneca vaccine was merely ‘quasi ineffective’ with one poll showing just 20 per cent of French voters had confidence in the jab in March.

Now though efforts have at last stepped up, with the country reaching a target of 10 million first doses a week ahead of its mid-April target. Unfortunately those welcome, if belated, figures were not enough for one member of Macron’s La République En Marche! Appearing on BFM TV on Monday night, French deputy Julien Borowczyk boasted that Paris was ahead of London in the number of citizens who had received a second dose of their vaccine and were thus ‘fully’ vaccinated.  A