evidence: A bitterly divided French National Assembly last week voted to approve sweeping legislation titled The Bill To Strengthen The Fight Against Sectarian Excesses And Improve The Support Of Victims. Article 4, derisively dubbed the "Pfizer Article" by critics, is the most controversial. It creates a new crime punishable by 1 to 3 years in prison and fines of €15,000 to €45,000 for speech or actions that causes others to "abandon medical care." [...] Although the word Pfizer does not appear in the legislation, nor does the term mRNA, the often-raucous debate in the National Assembly was largely directed at the anti-vaccine groundswell that had taken root online during COVID. Pharmaceutical companies lobbied behind the scenes for its passage. Supporters contended the law would ensure public safety in any national health crisis or a future pandemic. It was, said its sponsors, a "required tool to stop the spread of misinformation" that could otherwise undermine government public health policies. [...] Many governments used the pandemic to test novel ways to exert control from mandatory lockdowns to vaccine mandates and passports. France is the first country to consider adding a post-pandemic tool to criminalize speech that runs counter to that government policy. It is the type of authoritarian power that the Party in George Orwell’s 1984 would admire. The rest of us should be appalled.