The deputies deleted, Wednesday November 29, by a very large majority, an article introduced by the senators which intended to transform state medical aid (AME) into simple emergency medical aid (AMU), in the draft “immigration” law.
“The Law Committee of the National Assembly has just restored state medical aid. It was essential. It is a fair and strong position for an essential, effective and evaluated public health system,” reacted the Minister of Health, Aurélien Rousseau, on the social network X.
The general rapporteur of the bill, Florent Boudié (Renaissance), stressed that it was a question relating to “individual health”, but also a “question of collective health”. However, this is not about “closing the debate”. A report on the subject, written by Patrick Stefanini and Claude Evin, is due on December 4.
This rejection is not a surprise, the majority having said from the start that it would not retain this provision which transformed the AME into an AMU. This is an “obvious legislative rider”, reaffirmed Wednesday the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, that is to say a provision having no direct link with the text and likely, in this title, to be rejected by the Constitutional Council.
Only LR and the RN were in favor of removing the AME
President of the Horizons group in the Assembly, Laurent Marcangeli also considered that the measure had no place within the framework of the immigration text, and asked that, “quickly, the Prime Minister sets the conditions for this debate, why not on the occasion of an amending finance law”.
The left unanimously denounced the measure. Eliminating state medical aid would be “medically dangerous, economically absurd, morally unworthy,” said the president of the socialist group in the National Assembly, Boris Vallaud. The AME budget represents “0.5% of the Social Security budget”, a “drop in the ocean”, for his part affirmed Benjamin Lucas, of the environmental group.
Only the Republicans (LR) and the National Rally (RN) were in favor of this suppression, proposed by Marine Le Pen for “many years”, as recalled by RN deputy Yoann Gillet. The Senate had approved at first reading, at the beginning of November, the replacement of state medical aid with emergency medical aid, with a reduced basket of care and refocused on the management of urgent care, serious illnesses, acute pain, pregnancy-related care or even vaccinations.