It is a budget line that embarrasses the majority: state medical aid. This allows foreigners in an irregular situation to benefit from access to basic Social Security reimbursements, subject to conditions of residence and resources, and excluding certain medical costs (spa treatments, medically assisted procreation, etc.).
Tuesday evening, October 15, the Minister of Budget and Public Accounts, Laurent Saint-Martin (Renaissance), declared to AFP that this budget will ultimately be frozen, while an increase from 1.2 to 1.3 billion euros was initially planned in the finance bill for 2025.
Emergency medical aid
“Thanks to the mobilization of the National Rally group, the government announces the freezing of the budget dedicated to the AME”, RN MP Géraldine Grangier immediately congratulated herself on social networks. In the counter-budget presented on October 16, the RN therefore proposes to replace State medical aid (AME) with emergency medical aid (AMU), purely and simply erasing 1.2 billion in expenses. Not sure, however, that it was the far right that had the most influence in the government choice, despite the attacks from Jordan Bardella (RN) and Éric Ciotti (UDR).
The Republicans have in fact long called for a restriction of the AME to emergencies and serious or contagious illnesses. This proposal appeared in the presidential programs of François Fillon in 2017 and then of Valérie Pécresse in 2022. Tuesday, October 15 afternoon, it was also a Les Républicains deputy, Fabien Di Filippo, who asked the government a question question on the subject. Above all, the new Minister of the Interior, Bruno Retailleau, once again reiterated in an interview with Parisianon October 10, that he had “always advocated for the transformation of state medical aid into emergency medical aid” and that he was “ready to have this debate, including within the government”.
Marginal changes
In fact, the new government coalition brings together the right, which had already tried in the Senate to restrict the AME, and the Macronist center, which had opposed it. “I am not for its removal, and its modification can only be done at the margins, without changing the general framework of the AME”, therefore repeated the Minister of Health Geneviève Darrieussecq (MoDem), a professional doctor, Wednesday October 16 on France Inter. Previously, eight of his predecessors under the presidencies of Sarkozy (Roselyne Bachelot), Hollande (Marisol Touraine) and Macron (Agnès Buzyn, Olivier Véran, François Braun, Aurélien Rousseau, Agnès Firmin Le Bodo, Frédéric Valletoux) had signed in The World of September 26 a forum unfavorable to a restriction of the conditions of access to the AME as proposed by Bruno Retailleau.
“The government does not refrain from taking additional measures,” nevertheless affirmed Laurent Saint-Martin in his response to Fabien Di Filippo. “The strengthening of controls by health insurance, the establishment of data exchanges with consulates to fight against medical tourism, or even better consideration of the spouse’s resources in the right to AME”, quoted the budget minister, referring to the report written a year ago by Claude Évin (PS) and Patrick Stefanini (LR). This concerns just as much, if not more, the Social Security financing bill as the state budget.
The question of the amount devoted to state medical aid in the finance bill is in any case more symbolic than effective. Above all, it indicates a government intention. The current AME being a right, the amount entered is only an assessment – more or less sincere – of its cost in 2025.
