Isolated on French campsite thanks to QR codes failure
DID you have a pleasant weekend? Go out for a meal, perhaps, or just a walk with a break for a coffee at a favourite cafe? Were there any concerts or sports events that you went to?
Or did you perhaps just stay at home and meet no one, in a gesture of solidarity with those people from Guernsey who are currently subject to conditions very close to total lockdown in France?
If you found lockdown had a negative effect on your mental health when everyone was having to do the same, imagine how it feels when it is only your family affected. Everyone else has total freedom but you have none. More than that, you are being locked down through no fault or omission of your own and to no possible benefit to anyone but only because nameless, faceless bureaucrats in offices somewhere cannot raise the energy to do their jobs properly.
That is exactly the situation my wife and I find ourselves in here in France, because we do not have QR codes on our certificates of vaccination against Covid-19. We came because we have a caravan here that needed essential maintenance after being unused for two years. We submitted all the correct documents in the required format and within the prescribed data limits to the correct address and within good time for the French authorities to issue us each a Pass Sanitaire, with the magic QR code.
We received nothing until this weekend, when we had notice that ‘Due to the large number of applications received…’ all applications already submitted had been binned and those still needing passes should reapply to a new address. Neither on that email, nor on the web page to which it directed people, was any indication given where the new application forms could be downloaded from, nor where to send them when completed.
The French system had already issued close to 60m. passes to French citizens, so how many applications from Guernsey overwhelmed it? Or is it possible that my wife and I have become victims of a fishing dispute?
We are in this situation entirely because the bureaucrats in Guernsey and Paris have failed to correct a glitch in their procedures, but while they and the politicians who are supposed to oversee their activities can enjoy an Indian summer, we are isolated on a French campsite.
BARRIE PAIGE