State medical aid attacked again by the government

Criticizing social security coverage for foreigners is a time-honored refrain, associated, one might assume, with a certain political profit. Otherwise, how can we interpret the fact that, just days before its likely fall, the government is unleashing draft decrees reforming state medical aid (AME)? This system, which covers a basket of healthcare, is intended for undocumented foreigners earning less than €10,000 per year. It benefited more than 466,000 people at the end of 2024, a figure that has been steadily rising for more than ten years.

Reform or abolition projects championed by the right or the far right are legion, and sometimes materialize. Under President Emmanuel Macron, the AME (Medical Aid for All) was already cut in 2019. Upon his arrival at Place Beauvau in September 2024, Bruno Retailleau announced that he wanted to tackle it again, based on the recommendations of an evaluation mission entrusted in 2023 to the former Socialist Minister of Health, Claude Evin, and the former prefect and right-wing figure, Patrick Stefanini.

The Interior Minister's wishes had nevertheless been thwarted by the lack of a clear political majority on the subject. Until Tuesday, September 2, when the government's draft decrees were leaked to the press after two of them had been sent for advice to the presidency of the National Health Insurance Fund (CNAM). "When you ask the French to make an effort (...) it is not possible that the foreigners we welcome and help are not involved in this effort," Prime Minister François Bayrou confirmed on BFM-TV on Wednesday, September 3.

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