2023-10-11 07:06:36
The splits, at the risk of tearing. Already torn on the subject of regularization of undocumented workers, the executive continues to be tense on the subject of immigration. This time, on the subject of AME, full coverage of health costs granted to foreigners present in France for at least three months, which the Minister of the Interior plans to “remove” to “transform it into medical aid for ’emergency “. A way according to him to find “a good compromise” with the Republicans in the Senate, where the text will be examined from November 6.
A major concession, which “is not in the government’s initial position”, but to which Mr. Darmanin declared himself “personally in favor” in an interview on Sunday with the newspaper Le Parisien. Except that this point of view is far from unanimous among his colleagues. “By coming out on the AME, he knows that he will face a barrage from 90% of the majority and the government,” summarizes an executive from the Renaissance group.
Olivier Véran thus expressed Tuesday on franceinfo “a real disagreement” with the resident of Place Beauvau. “I am a doctor, I know roughly what I am talking about,” said the former Minister of Health, a neurologist by profession, emphasizing his “support” for the AME which is “not involved in the illegal immigration” and “does not constitute an appeal for foreigners in an irregular situation”. Contrary to what the right and extreme right assert together each year during budgetary debates, to demand a drastic restriction of the system created more than twenty years ago and which has exceeded the threshold of 400,000 beneficiaries per year, for a cost of the order of 1.2 billion euros.
“It would be lose-lose”
This claim was constantly met with refusal from the Ministry of Health, during the time of Mr. Véran as well as his predecessor Agnès Buzyn – who however carried out a reform in 2019 in the name of “the fight against fraud – and her successor François Braun who still highlighted “extremely strong public health issues” in the spring. The line remains defended by Aurélien Rousseau who, according to a government source, co-signed with Minister Agnès Firmin Le Bodo a note to the President of the Republic “to say that we must not touch the basket of care”.
Mr. Rousseau’s entourage stressed to AFP on Tuesday that “state medical aid protects its beneficiaries but also the entire population” and that “we must not weaken people’s access vulnerable to the most essential rights. “It would be lose-lose,” insists this same source. A minister also questions the political effectiveness of granting this concession to LR, which has drawn several red lines on the immigration text. “Basically, I think that retouching the AME changes nothing. The right just wants a totem,” he squeaks.
Elisabeth Borne, however, does not seem to have quite the same reservations. The head of government has, in fact, considered it “legitimate to re-examine” the AME and announced on Sunday a mission to “take stock of this system and see if, if necessary, adaptations are necessary”.
Task entrusted to two political veterans with opposing profiles, one from the right with a career in the Interior (Patrick Stéfanini), the other from the left and former Minister of Social Affairs (Claude Evin). “The government’s position will of course result from the conclusions” of this umpteenth report, assured Ms. Borne, who took the opportunity to call her ambitious rival from the Interior to order. “Everyone must pull in the same direction,” she warned, insisting that her ministers “pass texts.” More than an act of authority, a challenge.
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