The upper house records the disappearance of an emblematic aid. The Senate adopted on Tuesday the abolition of state medical aid (AME), reserved for undocumented immigrants, transformed into “emergency medical aid” during the examination of the “immigration” bill. This deletion may, however, still be challenged during the examination of the text in the National Assembly.
The reform was introduced by the senatorial right but the government did not oppose it. The Minister for Health Professions Agnès Firmin Le Bodo justified the government’s abstention by the fact that this reform “has nothing to do” in the immigration bill. “Mixing the debates on the AME and immigration control is nonsense,” declared Ms. Firmin Le Bodo in the Senate, assuring that “the government is very attached to the AME”, a “health device public.”
Despite everything, the government relied on the “wisdom” of senators on this reform proposal. Demanded for a long time by the right, it was voted for by 200 votes in favor and 136 against.
The adoption of the article abolishing the AME caused a strong reaction from left-wing parliamentarians. The doctor and environmentalist senator (related to the PS) Bernard Jomier notably deplored on X (formerly Twitter) “a health, moral and economic fault”. Socialist senator Corinne Narassiguin associated the government’s wisdom with “complicit silence”.
Originally, the government had not planned to question State Medical Aid (AME) as part of the discussions surrounding the “immigration” bill. But the Les Républicains (LR) party, which considers the health system too generous with undocumented immigrants, took advantage of its position of strength in the Senate to add an article in committee which transforms the AME into emergency medical aid (AMU), with a much more restricted perimeter and access conditions.
Currently, the system established by the left in 2000 gives the right to medical and hospital care – within the limits of Social Security rates – to illegal foreigners present in France for at least three months.
On October 7, Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin said he was in favor “on a personal level”, in Le Parisien, to the measure demanded by LR and its centrist ally in the Senate to “suppress the AME and transform it into AMU “. “It’s a good compromise which combines firmness and humanity,” assessed the former Sarkozyst, who has defended this position for around ten years.
