PARIS (REUTERS) - France's Parliament gave final approval on Sunday (Jan 16) to the government's latest measures to tackle the Covid-19 virus, including a vaccine pass contested by anti-vaccine protesters.

Lawmakers in the Lower House of Parliament voted 215 in favour to 58 against, paving the way for the law to enter into force in the coming days.

The new law, which had a rough ride through Parliament with opposition parties finding some of its provisions too tough, will require people to have a certificate of vaccination to enter public places, such as restaurants, cafes, cinemas and long-distance trains.

Currently, unvaccinated people can enter such places with the results of a recent negative Covid-19 test. Nearly 78 per cent of the population is fully vaccinated, according to the Health Ministry on Saturday.

President Emmanuel Macron, who is expected to seek a second term in an April presidential election, told Le Parisien paper this month that he wanted to "piss off" unvaccinated people by making their lives so complicated they would end up getting the Covid-19 vaccine.

Thousands of anti-vaccine protesters demonstrated in Paris and some other cities on Saturday against the law, but their numbers were down sharply from the week before, just after Mr Macron's remarks.

France is in the grip of its fifth Covid-19 wave, with daily new cases regularly hitting record levels over 300,000.

Nonetheless, the number of serious cases putting people in hospital intensive care units is much lower than the first wave in March to April 2020.