Last checked at 
* France criticised for slow vaccine roll-out
* French regulator: more information needed on AstraZeneca
* https://graphics.reuters.com/world-coronavirus-tracker-and-maps/
(Writes through)
By Sudip Kar-Gupta and Richard Lough
PARIS, Jan 4 (Reuters) - France sought to accelerate
COVID-19 inoculations on Monday after an initial roll-out slowed
by bureaucracy and government wariness in one of the most
vaccine-sceptical countries in the world.
It began vaccinating medical staff over the age of 50 after
delivering just 516 COVID shots developed by Pfizer and
Germany's BioNTech during the first week of a
campaign that focused on the elderly in nursing homes.
The slow start compared to European neighbours such as
Britain and Germany has irritated President Emmanuel Macron who
told people close to him "things must change fast and hard", the
weekly Journal du Dimanche reported on Sunday.
"It's going too slowly," epidemiologist and government
adviser Arnaud Fontanet told France Info radio.
"But the real deadline is to reach 5-10 million
(vaccinations) by the end of March, because that's the point at
which you have a real impact on the spread of the virus."
The coronavirus has killed more than 65,000 people in
France, the seventh highest national toll globally. Even so, a
survey over the weekend showed six in every 10 French citizens
intend to refuse vaccination.
Fontanet said it would be "useful" to simplify the
bureaucracy involved in the vaccination roll-out. He stopped
short of saying whether a mandatory consultation with a doctor
several days before getting a COVID jab was time wasted.
A slow vaccination campaign risks jeopardising France's
recovery from an unprecedented economic slump in a time of
peace.
France's National Academy of Medicine last week said the
government was taking "excessive precautions". Government
officials have said vaccinating in care homes was complex
logistically.
A spokesman for nursing home operator Korian said that it
had been told to be ready for vaccinations to be conducted in
the greater Paris area on Monday but that the doses had not yet
been delivered.
Britain, which has put more than a million COVID-19 vaccines
into arms already, began vaccinating its population with the
shot developed by Oxford University and AstraZeneca,
boasting a scientific triumph.
Dominique Le Guludec, head of France's medical regulator,
said there was still insufficient data to approve the
AstraZeneca vaccine.
"We prefer to wait another 15 days if necessary to have all
the data we need on safety and efficacy," Le Guludec told BFM
TV.
The EU's medical watchdog is expected to decide on approval
of a third vaccine, developed by Moderna, later this
week.
France on Monday sent 12 million pupils back to school after
the Christmas holidays as planned.
Restaurants, bars, museums and cinemas remain shut. It was
unlikely restaurants would re-open as initially planned on Jan.
20, Alain Griset, a government minister said on Sunday.
(Reporting by Sudip Kar-Gupta and Richard Lough; Editing by
Kevin Liffey and Nick Macfie)
