The government of President Macron has brushed aside protests against its Covid passport and insisted that the scheme would come into force today.
In a sign of a hardening confrontation between Macron and his opponents Olivier Véran, the health minister, dismissed protesters as a magma of antivax, anti-sciences and anti-state.
On Saturday 237,000 people took part in marches across France for a fourth successive weekend to denounce the passport as an attack on fundamental freedoms.
The number of protesters has risen every weekend to the surprise of police officers who say that the French penchant for demonstrations usually wanes in the holiday season.
In the middle of August, its completely unprecedented, David Le Bars, general secretary of the Union of National Police Superintendents, said.
He
