2023-11-24 01:06:35
Approved by 116 votes to 31. The deputies largely adopted a proposed law on old age on Thursday evening at first reading. The ambition of the text proposed by Renaissance “to build the society of aging well” is limited, but appears as a prelude to a broader text which could be adopted by the end of 2024. Only the PCF and LFI groups voted against, LR not participating in the vote.
In her explanations of vote, LFI MP Martine Étienne denounced a law which amounts to a “succession of measures, false good ideas and announcement effects”. According to the elected official, it masks the “inaction (of the government) on the question of autonomy”. For LR, Ian Boucart said he did not want to vote either for or against a “friendly” law and even with some “small advances”, but which “is content at this stage with good intentions”, far from the major text promised at the start of his first five-year term by Emmanuel Macron. He recalled that the examination of the law had been interrupted in April, only to resume seven months later, which “says a lot about the priority that the majority gives to this question”.
The other groups voted in favor, recognizing to varying degrees the modesty of this law proposed to them. They nevertheless applauded the announcement this week by Élisabeth Borne of a programming law on old age which could be presented by the summer and adopted in the second half of 2024. “I will trust you,” said the PS deputy Jérôme Guedj, welcoming the “will” of the Minister of Solidarity and Families Aurore Bergé that the subject “moves forward”.
Facilitate the work of home helpers
The text notably includes measures to combat the isolation of elderly people and a system for reporting cases of mistreatment. It also aims to “facilitate the daily work” of home helpers, via a professional card. It enshrines in law the right to visit nursing homes, as recommended in a report submitted to the government, after the trauma of many families during the Covid-19 crisis faced with the impossibility of going to see their loved ones.
During the debates, the deputies notably approved a government amendment to “obligate” private nursing homes to devote a fraction of their profits to improving the “well-being” of their residents – a measure echoing the Orpea scandal.
They also approved, on LR’s proposal, the establishment of new indicators to evaluate nursing homes, such as the number of weekly showers, the duration of meals, the nutritional state of residents or the number of individual protections per resident. They said they were in favor of eliminating, within the framework of social housing assistance, the “support obligation” for grandchildren. It must be said that the demographic context invites us to consider these questions: in 2030 one in three French people will be over 60 years old.
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