The abolition of state medical aid, a leitmotif of the right and a bone of contention

2024-09-24 18:15:58
The new Minister of the Interior, Bruno Retailleau, at the ministry, in Paris, during the transfer of power, September 23, 2024. CYRIL BITTON / DIVERGENCE POUR “LE MONDE”

There are stubborn symbols. In terms of immigration, state medical aid (AME) is one. This device divides the political arena and could quickly reveal the divisions within the new government.

Just appointed Minister of the Interior, executive heavyweight and conservative figure of the Republicans (LR), Bruno Retailleau declared on TF1, Monday September 23, that he wanted to tackle this basket of care for foreigners without papers earning less than 10,000 euros per year, and which benefited, at the end of 2023, around 450,000 people. “I don’t want (…) that France is the most attractive country in Europe for a certain number of social benefits and access to care”he declared. The new tenant of Place Beauvau can a priori benefit on this subject from the goodwill of the Prime Minister, Michel Barnier, who defended in 2021, during his campaign for the LR primary, the abolition of the AME.

“A public health system”

Members of the government, however, could cringe. The Minister of Ecological Transition, Energy, Climate and Risk Prevention, Agnès Pannier-Runacher, rather resistant to the right-wing of Macronism, reacted the next day on France Bleu Nord: “We have been clear. A deletion would not be acceptable because state medical aid, beyond [du fait qu’elle vient] helping foreigners in the territory, is a public health system”she opposed, echoing the discussions that took place in Macronie during the debates on the immigration bill carried by Gérald Darmanin, in the fall of 2023.

The Minister of Health, Geneviève Darrieussecq, remained silent on the subject but she had, in November 2023 and with twenty-five other MoDem deputies, signed a text published by the newspaper The Cross et entitled: “State medical aid, yes to the French health exception! » This forum opposed the suppression of the AME. At the time, the senatorial right – in the majority, Bruno Retailleau being president of the group of LR senators – had succeeded in introducing the removal of this health system, before the article was finally removed from the law. The government had nevertheless promised to look into reform and, to do this, an evaluation mission had been entrusted to the former socialist minister of health Claude Evin and the former prefect and right-wing man Patrick Stefanini.

Read the decryption: Article reserved for our subscribers A report reinforces state medical aid, while recommending its tightening

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Its conclusions, published on December 4, 2023, confirmed “health utility” of the AME and warned against “significant risk of forgoing care” what would its replacement with emergency medical aid entail, Who “would have the triple impact of a deterioration in the state of health of the people concerned, possible consequences on public health and increased pressure on health establishments”.

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