After the rejection of the articles and shortly before the final vote, the National Rally (RN) withdrew on Thursday October 12 its text aimed at improving the care of women with endometriosis. “This text, which could provide hope for women suffering from endometriosis, is now empty. I therefore withdraw it,” declared rapporteur Emmanuel Taché de la Pagerie.

The pathology which affects 1.5 to 2.5 million women in very different ways results in painful periods, but also sometimes digestive, urinary, lumbar, leg heaviness… For some women it requires long and particularly expensive. The far-right group’s text intended to grant women affected a specific and “exempt” long-term illness (ALD) status, and allow those who wish to benefit from the status of disabled worker.

“I do not deny anyone the right to embrace this fight” for “public health”, affirmed the Minister of Health, Aurélien Rousseau, while calling for the rejection of the text “neither legally tenable nor appropriate”, and “opportunistic” coming from the RN. “I defended this position during the presidential campaign,” retorted the president of the RN group, Marine Le Pen.

Two statuses granting rights

“It’s a rather sickening political operation on the part of the National Rally,” lamented La France Insoumise (LFI) MP Clémentine Autain after the withdrawal of the text. At the beginning of 2022, it unanimously adopted a resolution asking to include endometriosis on the list of long-term conditions known as “ALD 30”. Challenging the government’s national strategy on endometriosis lacking “means”, she again called on the minister to issue a decree to implement her resolution.

There are currently two statuses, “ALD30” and “ALD31” which can provide rights to people with illnesses. The “ALD30” allows 100% coverage, without advance costs, and the elimination of waiting days from the second stop. “ALD31”, to which women suffering from endometriosis are eligible, gives access to the same rights, but according to the Endomind patient association, it is more difficult to obtain.

Only 15,000 women have obtained this status. An “insufficient” number but which “has tripled in four years”, underlined the minister. In a session peppered with points of order, the groups opposed to the text denounced in turn a recovery operation. “Neither women’s health nor endometriosis will be your feminist guarantee,” launched Véronique Riotton (Renaissance). The Republicans, for their part, supported the text.