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HEALTH

France to fine patients who miss medical appointments

France is to introduce a five euro penalty for people who fail to turn up for millions of doctors' appointments missed each year, the prime minister said Saturday.

Published: 7 April 2024 11:47 CEST
A doctor calls a patient in the waiting room at the surgery consultation at Argenteuil hospital, north of Paris
A doctor calls a patient in the waiting room at the surgery consultation at Argenteuil hospital, north of Paris on July 19, 2013. The French government plans to fine patients who don’t attend appointments. (Photo by Fred DUFOUR / AFP)

The fine was one of several measures announced by Prime Minister Gabriel Attal to boost a health service struggling to keep up with increasing demands from an ageing and growing population.

“We cannot allow this,” Attal said of the 27 million consultations that the main doctors’ union says are wasted each year by patients not turning up.

Attal said the measure could free up between 15 million and 20 million appointments for other patients.

He said a law allowing a “mechanism for responsibility” would be put to parliament and that the government wanted the penalty to start from January 1.

The money would be paid by any person failing to turn up for an appointment or who gives less than 24 hours notice.

Individual doctors will decide if the reason for missing an appointment was good enough to avoid the financial penalty.

The prime minister will also seek to increase the number of students finishing high-pressure medical training in a bid to answer a critical shortage of doctors.

He said the number of students entering the second year of medical degrees would rise from 10,000 a year in 2023 to 12,000 in 2025 and 16,000 in 2027.

Medicine is considered one of the toughest university degrees in France with up to a third of students dropping out at the end of the first year.

Officials acknowledged that the change may only affect the French health service from 2035 because of the time it takes to train doctors.

Attal told a press briefing that there would also be an experiment from next year to allow patients to make appointments with some specialists without being referred by a general doctor — which is the current rule.

The proposal was criticised by the main union for general practitioners, MG France, which insisted “it will not solve anything” as there is the same shortage of specialists as for generalists.

Attal’s advisors said action was critical as getting reliable access to a doctor was one of the main gripes of French voters.

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ECONOMY

S&P downgrades French credit rating in blow to Macron

Ratings agency Standard & Poor's downgraded France's credit score on Friday citing a deterioration in the country's budgetary position, a blow to Emmanuel Macron's government days before EU parliamentary elections.

Published: 1 June 2024 15:44 CEST
S&P downgrades French credit rating in blow to Macron

In a statement, the American credit assessor justified its decision to drop France’s long-term sovereign debt rating from “AA” to “AA-” on concerns over lower-than-expected growth.

It warned that “political fragmentation” would make it difficult for the government to implement planned reforms to balance public finances and forecast the budget deficit would remain above the targeted three percent of GDP in 2027.

The S&P’s first downgrade of France since 2013 puts the EU’s second-largest economy on par with the Czech Republic and Estonia but above Spain and Italy.

The announcement will sting for Macron, who has staked a reputation as an economic reformer capable of restoring France’s accounts after low growth and high spending.

The risk of a ratings downgrade had been looming for several quarters, with the previous “AA” assessment given a “negative outlook”.

The surprise slippage in the public deficit for 2023 to 5.5 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) instead of the expected 4.9 percent did not play in the government’s favour.

France’s general government debt will increase to about 112 percent of GDP by 2027, up from around 109 percent in 2023, “contrary to our previous expectations”, the agency added.

Responding to the downgrade decision, Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire reaffirmed the government’s commitment to slashing the public deficit to below three percent by 2027.

“Our strategy remains the same: reindustrialise, achieve full employment and keep to our trajectory to get back under the three percent deficit in 2027,” he said in an interview with newspaper Le Parisien, insisting that nothing would change in the daily lives of the French.

Le Maire claimed the downgrade was primarily driven by the government’s abundant spending during the Covid pandemic to provide a lifeline to businesses and French households.

The main reason for the downgrade was because “we saved the French economy,” he said.

Government critics offered a different rationale.

“This is where the pitiful management of public finances by the Macron/Le Maire duo gets us!” Eric Ciotti, head of the right-wing Republicans party, wrote on social media platform X.

Far-right leader Marine Le Pen called the Macron administration’s handling of public finances “catastrophic” and denounced the government as being “as incompetent as they are arrogant”.

A credit downgrade risks putting off investors and making it more difficult to pay off debt.

Earlier this year, influential ratings agencies Moody’s and Fitch spared handing France a lower note.

S&P also maintained its “stable” outlook for France on Friday on “expectations that real economic growth will accelerate and support the government’s budgetary consolidation”, albeit not enough to bring down its high debt-to-GDP ratio.

“S&P’s downgrading of France’s debt simply reflects an imperative that we are already aware of: the need to continue restoring our public finances,” Public Accounts Minister Thomas Cazenave wrote in a statement sent to AFP.

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