The rural mayors, meeting in congress Friday, asked Prime Minister Jean Castex for more support, believing that the “account is not there yet” in particular to fight against medical deserts. “I want to talk to you about health, which has really been forgotten on the rural agenda,” said Michel Fournier, president of the
Association of Rural Mayors of France (AMRF) on a program of 181 measures for rurality launched two years ago and inspired by the
“Great debate” which followed the crisis of “yellow vests”.
“The State has just demonstrated during the Covid crisis that it could mobilize services, the population and elected officials”, he recalled, welcoming the head of government to the 50th AMRF congress in Yonne , regretting the absence of “an interlocutor of the State” to debate about medical deserts during this day.
“The time bomb will explode”
“The State must now do it with the same energy to reverse the equation of access to care. Otherwise, the time bomb will explode ”, he warned, denouncing the difficulties for the inhabitants of the rural world to have access to a doctor. “Whether in the field of employment, school, health or mobility […] the account is not there yet ”, underlined Michel Fournier.
In his speech, Jean Castex, who presented himself as “an elected representative of rurality”, recalled the lifting of the numerus clausus for medical studies. “We are putting the package on public health”, he assured. The head of government also specified that the recovery plan, of 100 billion euros over two years to revive the French economy after the health crisis, already benefits the rural world to the tune of 8.4 billion against 5 billion. announced initially, acknowledging that he “was wrong”.
In Villevallier, just before the opening of the AMRF congress, Jean Castex chaired the third meeting of the Interministerial Committee for Rurality with the participation of the Minister for Territorial Cohesion, Jacqueline Gourault, the Secretary of State for Rurality, Joël Giraud, of the Secretary of State for Digital, Cédric O, and of the Secretary of State for Tourism, Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne.