French Macron said AstraZeneca vaccine was "almost ineffective" in the over-65s but his government has announced an apparent U-turn by approving the jab for some older people.
ItIt was just a month ago that French president Emmanuel Macron said the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine was "almost ineffective" in the over-65s, reports the BBC.
His Europe minister then accused the UK of taking "massive risks" by depending too heavily on its home-grown jab.
Mr Macron has now said that he would happily receive the AstraZeneca vaccine if that was what he was offered. His government also announced an apparent U-turn by approving the jab for some older people.
So what has changed? Have the French now seen the limits of criticising AstraZeneca and come to understand that there can be no such thing as too many vaccines?
Or have the UK's accusations of French vaccine nationalism been wide of the mark? After all, it's not a race, and if Europeans chose to be careful over the AstraZeneca vaccine because they felt there was a lack of clinical evidence for the over-65s, that would hardly be the first time the EU's precautionary principle has slowed things down.
