Really, it's the French administration's fondness for paperwork.
During the Covid lockdowns people were allowed to go out for a number of specific reasons, like in most countries. Of course the French administration decided that this required people to fill a specific form to select the reason, to sign the form (along with name, date and place of birth, address, date of time person left home), and to carry it with them in case police stopped them... After some time they did deploy an electronic version (on smartphones, but that's still a form) but it's the very idea of doing something like that that is symptomatic of the mindset.
On the plus side, they could implement it in few days while waiting for the phone version to be up. Businesses could print it for grandmas and hobos that were limited tech wise.
And during these few days they created a paper that was barely understandable. Luckily we had the news at 20:00 with an everyday FAQ related to that.
This was literally a piece of paper, but they managed to make it difficult to understand.
On the other hand, I must say that the police is human here as well and when you had almost the right papers and obviously were not trying to play the system they were very understanding (at least where I live)
Sure, but the 'madness' is to require this in the first place because, really, it serves no purpose (apart from allowing to prosecute people for perjury on top of fining them for breaking lockdown). That's the point re. love of French administration for paperwork and forms.
During the Covid lockdowns people were allowed to go out for a number of specific reasons, like in most countries. Of course the French administration decided that this required people to fill a specific form to select the reason, to sign the form (along with name, date and place of birth, address, date of time person left home), and to carry it with them in case police stopped them... After some time they did deploy an electronic version (on smartphones, but that's still a form) but it's the very idea of doing something like that that is symptomatic of the mindset.