HIV-positive people will now be able to join the army, announced Monday on France 2 the Minister of the Armed Forces Sébastien Lecornu, who issued an order to this effect.
The decree, on the proposal of the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin, “will be published in the days to come” and will apply to the “gendarmerie, the firefighters of Paris and Marseille, and all the armed forces “said Mr. Lecornu on the program Les Quatre Vérités.
“Having HIV will no longer be a criterion of discrimination on principle,” he stressed.
Until now, the medical criteria for aptitude for integration did not allow HIV-positive people to access these professions.
At the end of November 2022, this discrimination in hiring targeting people living with HIV, the virus responsible for AIDS, had already been lifted for the police.
The government had repealed by decree the application of Sigycop, a device for evaluating physical fitness used in several public service professions.
Applied strictly, this assessment classified HIV-positive people as unfit.
Until now, the Ministry of the Armed Forces, whose health service governs the recruitment of gendarmes and military firefighters, had always refused to modify the Sigycop.
The latest scientific studies have shown that HIV-positive people receiving antiretroviral treatment have an undetectable viral load and do not transmit HIV.