President Emmanuel Macron’s government has been facing severe backlash over the slow roll out of vaccines in France, reported AFP. With the new strain of the coronavirus already acquainting itself with French, Paris has been struggling to keep up with the pressure, the report added.

According to Oxford University’s Our World in Data website, as of December 31, 352 people in France had been jabbed whereas it was December 27 when the UK had crossed 940,000 people. Jean Rottner, the head of France’s Grand Est eastern region, which has seen a particularly sharp rise in infections, went on mile extra to tell France 2 television that, ‘What the country has seen is a government scandal’.

“Things need to accelerate,” said Rottner, a member of the right-wing Republicans (LR) opposition party. “The French need clarity and firm messages from a government that knows where it is going. It is not giving this impression.”

Macron himself vowed to tackle the mounting pressure ‘without any unjustified tardiness’ as he mentioned in his New Year address.

AFP reports say that, only a few hundred people have received the jab so far in France, compared with over 200,000 in Germany and around one million in Britain

French newspaper Journal du Dimanche newspaper reported Emmanuel Macron’s statements from a conversation. A pace at the level of “a family stroll” was not “worthy of the moment nor of the French,” the newspaper, seen as close to the Elysee Palace, quoted Macron as saying.

“I am at war in the morning, noon, evening and night,” the president, who recently himself recovered from Covid-19 infection, said according to the report. “I expect the same commitment from all. This won’t do. It must change quickly and firmly.”

The deputy president of the far-right National Rally (RN), Jordan Bardella, said that France had become the “laughing stock of the world.”

“We vaccinated in a week the same number that the Germans vaccinated in 30 minutes. It’s shameful,” he told RTL television.

According to the French health ministry just 516 people had received the vaccination by January 1.

The government had begun the vaccination drive by targeting residents of care homes, a laborious process given that consent is required from each patient.

However in an apparent change of tack in the face of the pressure, Health Minister Olivier Veran announced that health workers aged over 50 could be vaccinated starting Monday.

Elisabeth Bouvet, head of the technical committee on vaccines for the French health authority, said the strategy would remain the same but “probably must accelerate.”

“We must not exaggerate: we started vaccinating just a week ago, we cannot call this a disaster,” she told France Inter radio.

The EU so far has approved only the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, while a vaccine developed by France’s Sanofi and Britain’s GSK is only going to be ready later in the year due to delays.

But the government has vehemently denied it is holding out for a homegrown French vaccine to become available.