2023-10-10 17:53:36
State medical aid (AME) has not finished dividing. Invited this Tuesday morning, October 10, to the microphone of France Info, government spokesperson Olivier Véran reaffirmed his “support” for the AME which “does not, according to him, constitute a call for fresh air for foreigners in an irregular situation” , ensuring that there is “no debate within the government”. And he adds dryly: “I’m a doctor, I know roughly what I’m talking about.” A barely veiled criticism addressed to his Interior colleague Gérald Darmanin who, during an interview given to Le Parisien on October 7, said he was “favorable”, but “on a personal basis”, to the proposal of the Republicans to transform the AME into AMU, emergency medical aid.
The AME, castigated by the right
It must be said that since its establishment by the Jospin government in 2000, State Medical Aid has constituted a real point of tension within the political class. Regularly denounced as being a device encouraging immigration, its removal has been repeatedly called for by right-wing and far-right parties. Especially since its cost remains relatively high. Like its predecessor, the 2024 finance bill devotes 1.2 billion euros to it.
A sum which “should continue to grow”, warned LR MP Véronique Louwagie last May, warning of the spectacular increase in the number of beneficiaries. More than 20,000 in less than six months. An argument which, however, was not enough to convince the deputies to vote for the bill tabled by Les Républicains which reduced the scope of this support for foreigners to emergency care.
An opposition between the left and right wing of the presidential camp
Something to rejoice the new Minister of Health, Aurélien Rousseau, for whom the abolition of the AME would result in a “lose-lose” situation. A position, close to that of Olivier Véran, shared by a large part of the left wing of the majority for whom AME is a public health issue. “State medical aid protects its beneficiaries but also the entire population,” Aurélien Rousseau’s entourage argued to our colleagues at AFP. The Minister of Health would even have co-signed with Agnès Firmin Le Bodo, in charge of Territorial Organization and Health Professions, a note to the President of the Republic “to say that we must not touch the basket of care”.
Faced with the differences germinating within her government, and accentuated by the media outing of the Minister of the Interior, Élisabeth Borne announced on Sunday October 8 the creation of a mission responsible for determining whether adaptations of Medical Aid State (AME) are “necessary”. And to ensure that “the position of the government will of course result from the conclusions of this mission”, which will be led by the campaign director of Valérie Pécresse during the presidential election, Patrick Stefanini and the former socialist deputy Claude Evin.
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