Reader question: How can I get a 'health passport' for travel to and from France?

Question: I've had both doses of the vaccine and I plan to travel to France this summer. I read that I will need a vaccine passport, which I have no objection to, but how do I get hold of one of these?

This is a good question, the answer to which is still uncertain in some aspects. Here's what we know:

June 6th

Announcing France's timetable for reopening, president Emmanuel Macron said that June 6th would be the date that the 'pass sanitaire' health passport would begin to be used in France, both for international travel and for access to large events like concerts and sports matches.

For anyone travelling before June 6th, the current rules apply.

Before that date, non-essential travel (including tourism, family visits and visits from second-home owners) is only allowed from certain countries - find the full list HERE.

If you are travelling from one of the exempt countries you will need to follow the rules on testing, even if you are fully vaccinated. France requires a negative Covid test, taken within the previous 72 hours and this must be a PCR test, the rapid-result antigen tests or home-test kits are not accepted.

You also need to fill out a travel declaration - find the forms HERE.

Bear in mind that your home country may also require testing and quarantine on your return.

Setting up the pass

So you might not be able to use the health pass before June 6th, but can you be getting ready to set it up?

For those in France, we do know how the pass will work - it will be via the Covid-tracking app TousAntiCovid.

You can download that now and go to the 'wallet' section and scan in vaccine certificates. People who get their vaccine from May 3rd onward will get an attestation de vaccination Covid-19 (vaccination certificate) with a QR code that can be scanned into the app.

People who were vaccinated earlier can get the code via their Ameli account from 'the second half of May'.

The app also allows codes from test results to be scanned in.

For those not in France, it's a little less clear. 

Firstly, countries outside the EU need to have bilateral agreements in place to recognise each others' health passports and then there's the technical aspect of making sure each country's apps 'talk' to each other and accept codes from foreign vaccination certificates.

There's also the issue of the EU 'green pass' health passport, which is also set to be launched in June. At this stage we don't know whether this will be used in addition to the French one or instead of.

READ ALSO How will the EU's 'vaccine passport' work?

This is all being talked about at a political level, and we will update our Travelling to France section as soon as we know more.

Which vaccines will be accepted?

The EU has said it will accept a certificate from any vaccine currently licensed for use in Europe, and it seems likely that France will do the same. Licensed for use in the EU are: Pfizer BioNTech, Moderna, AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson (which is known as Janssen in some countries, including France).

The pass would not, for the moment, recognise the Russian Sputnik vaccine since that is not licensed for use by the European Medicines Agency.

The Chinese vaccine Sinovac is also currently not licenced, but is being reviewed by the EMA.

What about people who are not vaccinated?

Both the French and the EU passes have options to upload either a vaccination certificate or a recent negative test, while the EU one will also include an option for medical certificates for people who have recently recovered from Covid. So people who either cannot be vaccinated or don't want to be will not be barred from travel.

What about people who don't have a smartphone?

Both France and the EU have said that there will be paper options for people who cannot download the apps, but at the moment there are no details on how this will work.