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HEALTH

Who can benefit from free cancer screening in France?

France runs an extensive cancer screening programme, with free screenings for those in at-risk age categories available for some of the most common cancers.

Published: 8 February 2024 09:37 CET
Who can benefit from free cancer screening in France?
A patient undegoing screening for breast cancer. (Photo by ANNE-CHRISTINE POUJOULAT / AFP)

Regular cancer screening check-ups, whether you are symptomatic or not, can help detect cancer early, making it more treatable, or allow preventative action to be taken. 

If you are registered in the French system and have a carte vitale you have the right to free check-ups for breast, cervical and bowel cancer, once you hit a particular age bracket.

If you’re not registered in the French system you can still have the screening in France (as long as you’re resident here), but it won’t be free. If you’ve applied for a carte vitale but it has not yet arrived, you can request a feuille de soin when you pay for the appointment – this is basically a type of receipt that will allow you to claim back the cost once you get your card.

This is how the process works.

Breast cancer (cancer du sein)

Women aged between 50 and 74 are covered by France’s breast cancer screening programme. Examinations are recommended every two years between those two ages, and eligible carte vitale holders should receive a letter inviting them to a mammogram.

The cost of the screening is covered by the State on presentation of the invitation letter or email.

Reminders are sent – electronically to your online Ameli account if you have one – after six months and again after a year, if you don’t take advantage of the invitation.

Cervical cancer (cancer du col de l’utérus)

Cervical cancer screenings are offered free to women between the ages of 25 and 65. 

For those aged between 25 and 29, the first two free smear tests take place one year apart. If the results of both screenings are normal, the next examination is three years later.

From the age of 30, screenings are recommended every five years up to the age of 65.

If you have not completed the screening within the recommended time frame, you will receive an invitation to do so. 

Bowel cancer (cancer colorectal)

Every two years, eligible adults aged between 50 and 74 will receive an invitation to order a free test online.

The test is to be carried out at home and returned free of charge by post. The colorectal cancer screening kit is provided or ordered free of charge, and the test analysis is covered at 100 percent via the carte vitale.

From now on, if you have not been screened, the first and second reminders can be sent electronically via your Ameli account. 

Prostate cancer (cancer de la prostate)

In case you’re wondering, prostate cancer is not routinely screened for in France because the two standard forms of screening – physical and by blood test – are not sufficiently accurate to justify routine tests. 

But anyone who thinks they need a check-up can arrange one by visiting their GP. 

General health checks

Prevention check-ups have been introduced aimed at anyone in the following age brackets: 18-25; 45-50; 60-65; and 70-75.

You will receive a letter from your health insurance company inviting you to make an appointment for a preventive check-up where you can discuss:

  • your personal and family medical history;
  • prevention and identification of chronic diseases;
  • your lifestyle habits;
  • your mental and social well-being.

The idea is to identify potential future health problems, including the likelihood of cancer, and prevent them from happening.

Call-ups

As stated above, you should be contacted via Ameli and invited to screenings once you are in the right age group. However it can happen that new arrivals are missed off the list, or you have have missed out on screenings while living in another country.

If you’re in the right age bracket but haven’t been sent an invitation, you can still make an appointment with your doctor for the relevant test – cervical smear tests are usually gone by a gynaecologist or midwife, rather than a GP.

If you’re worried and want screening more often that the free sessions offered, there’s nothing to stop you making an appointment directly with your doctor or gynaecologist – these tests would be charged at the doctor’s standard rate for appointments and reimbursed at the usual appointment rate too (normally 70 percent reimbursed by the state and the rest covered by your mutuelle if you have one).

The cervical smear test involves taking a scraping of cells from the neck of the womb, which are then sent off to a laboratory for analysis. If you have your test done at a health centre it’s likely that clerical staff will take care of sending off the sample for you, but if it’s done by a gynaecologist or midwife who is a sole practitioner they may give you the sample (in a pre-addressed envelope) to pop into the post on your way home.

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TRAVEL NEWS

What’s the deal with passport stamping in France?

There are clear guidelines in place about who should have their passport stamped when they enter or leave France - but the letter of the law doesn't always seem to be applied on the ground. Here's what you need to know.

Published: 17 May 2024 14:24 CEST
What's the deal with passport stamping in France?

When you pass through a French border control post, officers will check your passport and – in some cases – stamp the date of your entry or exit of the country onto one of the blank pages in the booklet.

Although the system should be clear and simple, it becomes complicated when conflicting information is given on the ground.

Here’s what the rules say, and whether it’s really a problem if your passport is incorrectly stamped.

Who should be stamped?

The purpose of the date stamps for entry and exit is to calculate how long you have been in France, and therefore whether you have overstayed your allowed time – whether that is the time allowed by a short-stay Schengen visa or the visa-free 90-day allowance that certain non-EU nationals benefit from. 

Those people who are exempt from 90-day restrictions should therefore not have their passports stamped.

EU passport – people who have an EU passport should not have it stamped, because they have the right to unlimited stays due to EU freedom of movement.

Dual nationals – people who have passports of both EU and non-EU countries should not be stamped when they are travelling on their EU passport. However, because the passports of dual nationals are not ‘linked’, those travelling on their non-EU passports will be stamped, unless they have other proof of residency.

READ ALSO What are the rules for dual-nationals travelling in France?

French residents – the passports of non-EU citizens who have a residency permit in France (carte de séjour) should not be stamped, because they have the right to stay in France for as long as their permit is valid.

Visa holders – people who have a long-stay visa or a short-stay visitor visa should not be stamped, because they have the right to stay in France for as long as their visa is valid. 

Tourists/visitors – people making short visits to France who do not have a visa should be stamped, with the stamps keeping track of their 90-day allowance. Visitors from nationalities who do not benefit from the 90-day rule (eg Indians) are also stamped.

Travel practicalities

When crossing a French border, you should present your passport along with other documents – visa or carte de séjour – if relevant. Don’t wait for border guards to ask whether you are a resident.

It should be noted that the carte de séjour is not a travel document and cannot be used to cross borders, not even internal Schengen zone borders. The only valid travel documents for entering France are a passport or national ID card. Any other forms of ID – driving licence, residency card etc – cannot be used for travel purposes.

Border problems

While the rules on stamping are simple in theory, many readers of The Local have reported having their passports incorrectly stamped at the border, and this seems to be a particular problem for non-EU nationals who are resident in France.

Travellers are also often given incorrect information by border guards – for example being told that only holders of the post-Brexit Article 50 TUE carte de séjour are exempt from stamping, that all non-EU nationals must have their passports stamped or that only being married to a French national exempts you from stamping.

None of these are correct.

It’s also sometimes the case that people whose passports should be stamped – tourists, visitors and second-home owners who don’t have a visa – do not receive the stamp. For frequent visitors this can be a problem because it looks as though they have had a long stay in France, due to their exit not being recorded.

The system of stamping itself is also a bit haphazard with stamps scattered throughout the passport book in random order, so border guards sometimes make mistakes and miss an entry or exit stamp and therefore think that people have overstayed when they haven’t.

So how much of a problem actually is it if your passport is wrongly stamped?

It’s one thing to know the rules yourself, it’s quite another to have an argument with a border guard, in French, when a long queue is building behind you. Numerous Local readers have reported feeling that they had no choice but to accept a stamp when an implacable guard insisted upon it.

But is this really a problem?

One thing is clear – if you are a resident of France then you have the right to re-enter, and your proof of residency (visa or carte de séjour) takes precedence over any passport stamps. So it’s not a question of being barred from the country – it can, however, be inconvenient as it might lead to delays at the border while your passport record is queried.

Meanwhile people who did not receive correct exit stamps can be incorrectly told that they have over-stayed and even be liable for a fine. 

Will the new EES passport control system improve this?

Theoretically, the EU’s new Entry & Exit System – which does away with the manual stamping of passports – should get rid of these problems.

However, as we have seen, theory and what actually happens on the ground are two different things.

The EES system, due to come into effect later this year, brings in two main changes – it makes passport checks more secure by adding diometric data such as fingerprints and facial scans and it does away with manual stamping of passports and replaces it with scans which automatically calculate how long people have been in France.

You can read full details of how it works HERE. 

So that should eliminate the problems of unclear stamps, stamps being read wrongly or passports not getting the stamps they need.

Residents in France – carte de séjour and visa holders – are not required to complete EES checks and should have a separate system at ports, airports and railway terminals.

However, at present it’s pretty common for border guards to give incorrect information to non-EU residents who are resident in the EU – let’s hope that they are properly briefed before EES is deployed.

Have you had problems with passports being incorrectly stamped? Please share your experiences in the comments section below

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