France launches 400 investigations into fake Covid-19 health passes

Security personnel check a Covid-19 health pass to access a Christmas market in Strasbourg, eastern France (Jean-Francois Badias/AP)

France has opened 400 investigations into networks providing fake Covid-19 health passes, the interior minister has said, as virus-related hospital admissions rise sharply across the country.

In recent days French media have covered the case of a woman with the virus who died in a Paris regional hospital after showing a false vaccine certificate. The hospital’s intensive care chief said they would have given the woman immediate antibody treatment had they known that she was not vaccinated.