Emmanuel Macron announced Tuesday in Ardèche his intention to relocate to France the production of around fifty essential drugs, including twenty-five soon, in order to deal with the shortages which have hit products sometimes for the general public such as antibiotics or paracetamol.
“These relocations which have been talked about so much show that we have reversed the direction of history”, launched the Head of State on the site of the pharmaceutical laboratory Aguettant in Champagne, at the start of a week of dedicated meetings. the strengthening of French industrial and technological sovereignty.
“This reindustrialisation is underway”, he hammered on this theme which had already been the subject of a communication offensive in May to show that he was regaining control after the pension crisis, and which it seems want to make the common thread of its mandates.
After visiting the Aguettant laboratory, which will participate in the effort by strengthening its production of three ready-to-use strategic emergency and resuscitation molecules that were lacking during the pandemic, Emmanuel Macron mentioned a list of 450 “essential drugs”.
A list unveiled in Le Parisien by the Minister of Health François Braun, who indicates that “for these molecules, manufacturers must have four months of stock”.
Among these molecules, a “core list” of “fifty essential drugs for which our dependence on extra-European imports is proven” or whose French production is insufficient in relation to demand and which must therefore be “relocated” , explained the President of the Republic.
Twenty-five of them “will see their production relocated or significantly increased”, a process which will begin “in the weeks to come”, he added. The Minister Delegate in charge of Industry specifies for his part that these transformations will have been completed “within five years”.
And this, thanks to eight relocation projects and 160 million euros of public and private investment, including that of Aguettant and that of the British laboratory GSK to increase the production of amoxicillin, the most prescribed antibiotic for children and which is regularly out of stock.
The other twenty-five drugs to be relocated in a second step will be the subject of a “counter” endowed with a “first envelope of 50 million euros” provided by the State, explained Emmanuel Macron, who also says it wants to promote prevention in order to have less recourse to certain molecules that are misused.
An announcement welcomed with “vigilance” by Leem, a professional business organization which calls for “a viable economic model” for drugs in the next Social Security budget.
For its part, France Assos Santé notes the absence of conditionality of public aid: “companies should not be tempted, after aid, to relocate for questions of profitability”, indicates its administrator to AFP , Catherine Simonin.
“To make believe that Emmanuel Macron would have made a policy favorable to the question of relocation and against the shortages of medicines is absolutely false”, castigated the leader of the deputies LFI Mathilde Panot who warns more particularly against the “shortage of abortion pills, extremely worrying for the right to abortion in our country”.
France depends 60 to 80% on imports, particularly from China, for the production of so-called mature drugs (antibiotics, anesthesia products, etc.). And according to a BVA study carried out for France Assos Santé in March, cited by the Elysée, 37% of French people were faced with shortages in pharmacies.
Emmanuel Macron then went to another company in the Ardèche, Chamatex in Ardoix, which embarked on the relocation of sneakers to France.
Sign that the page of pensions is turned after the failure of a new motion of censure against the government Monday in the National Assembly? Barely thirty demonstrators were waiting for him in Champagne, far from the pots and pans that had accompanied his travels after the promulgation of retirement at 64 years old.
Emmanuel Macron is therefore reinvesting in the field, against a background of reflection on a possible government reshuffle to start a new page of his second five-year term in the summer.
In this respect, his arrival on the Ardèche lands of his Minister of Labor Olivier Dussopt, who carried the pension reform and will be tried in November for favoritism in a public contract case, can be interpreted as a form of support. The Minister accompanied him on the visit to the laboratory.
On Wednesday, the president will make announcements at the VivaTech show in Paris, one of the world’s major technology meetings, on “funding, training and research in artificial intelligence”.
“As Europeans, we must also move forward to regulate and master this technology, in the service of progress and employment,” he noted on Twitter.
Friday and Monday, he will speak on the decarbonization of aviation, in particular via sustainable fuels produced in France, on the occasion of the Paris Air Show.
“Yes, the zero-emission plane is possible. I want it to be French and European”, underlined the Head of State.
13/06/2023 16:58:52 – Champagne (France) (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
