One month before the start of the examination of the Immigration Bill in the Senate, this opinion could be widely commented on. The National Ethics Advisory Committee expressed Thursday its “deep concern” about “the threat weighing on state medical aid » (AME), defending an “indispensable” system for equal access to care but also an “ethic of fraternity”.
The AME fully covers the health costs of foreigners living in France for at least three months. Gérald Darmanin, who is seeking a compromise with the right on his bill, plans to delete it to “transform it into emergency medical aid”. Without the approval of the “wise men” of the National Ethics Committee, judging by the press release they published this Thursday. “In a complex geopolitical context, CCNE reiterates its support for populations forced into exile and its attachment to the AME. He considers that this system remains essential because it offers illegal foreigners present on French territory access to health care, whether in community medicine or in a hospital environment,” the text indicates.
Noting that exiles, whatever their legal status, “accumulate numerous vulnerability factors”, the committee chaired by Professor Jean-François Delfraissy judges “our duty to support them in their fundamental right to health”.
Disagreements within the government
The press release also underlines that the CCNE has already warned of the “challenges of access to care” for exiles in France, “a country of immigration for several decades”, and recalled in 2022, against a backdrop of war in Ukraine, the “character universal duty of fraternity towards all migrants or refugees” and the “principle of equity”.
The debate on the AME divides even within the government itself. Its spokesperson and former Minister of Health Olivier Véran expressed a “real disagreement” with his Interior colleague on Tuesday. He fears in particular that a foreigner in an irregular situation “will not come for a consultation” and that “it will cost a lot more” in the end if his health worsens.
Élisabeth Borne deemed it “legitimate to re-examine” the AME and announced on Sunday a mission to determine whether “adaptations” are “necessary”. Agnès Buzyn, then Minister of Health, carried out a reform in 2019 in the name of “the fight against fraud”.
The AME has regularly been controversial since its creation in 2000. It is often targeted by the right and the far right, who consider that it generates a “breathtaking” for illegal immigration.