Latest news:health care, pharmacies plus more
Health-care turnabout
Amends have been made to the recent health-care ruling. The legislation announced at the end of last year denied inactive EU citizens resident in France (ie below pensionable age) access to health care via the CMU. In the latest amendment, the ruling will still apply going forward however it will not be applied retrospectively. This turnabout means that inactive EU citizens resident in France who were registered in the CMU or who were in possession of an E106 before 23 November 2007 will still have access to health care.
Up close and competitive
In a somewhat radical move for French health care, pharmacies in France will soon be allowed to stock many medicines in front of the counter rather than have them dispensed by pharmacists from behind the counter. The move should increase price competitiveness as consumers can compare prices at a glance and enjoy increased buying power. The measure should include cough medicine and skin treatments among other medication. The French health minister, Roselyne Bachelot, drew the line at making the medicines available in supermarkets.
Got your number
It is thought that bumper stickers will pick up where car registration plates will leave off when the new anonymous car number plates ruling comes into force next year. Currently, the last two digits on a registration plate denote the department where the driver is resident but as of next year, this will not be the case. The head of Pas-de-Calais’ regional council distributed tens of thousands of bumper stickers throughout the department to encourage residents to defend their regional identity.
France 24 to go
President Sarkozy wants to stop broadcasting the country’s English-language 24-hour news channel, France 24. The channel, set up by Chirac in 2006, broadcasts in French, English and Arabic around the world and was an attempt to challenge the market leaders, CNN and BBC World. He wants to replace it with a French-only network, France Monde, as he is against funding an English-language channel with taxpayers’ money. The new channel will offer a French perspective on world news – only in French.
France by numbers
Fertility figures for 2007 showed France to be the champion of Europe. France’s fertility rate measured 1.98 children per woman against an EU average of 1.52. The high rate has been put down to social factors such as universal public schooling from the age of three and relatively affordable childcare. France’s population totalled 63.753 million on 1 January 2008, up by 400,000 since the previous year and French women had Europe’s longest life expectancy of 84.4 years.
Public holiday reinstated
When some 15,000 elderly and disabled died in the heat wave of 2003, the response of the French government was to ask workers to give up a day’s holiday to help fund health care. Four years on and the experiment is to be abandoned due to dwindling support as increasingly, workers decided to stay at home during the May Pentecost holiday, known as the ‘day of solidarity’. In its first year, the initiative raised more than 2 billion euros but the initiative provoked confusion, resentment and inevitable strikes from its inception.
Alcohol articles are a health hazard
A French court ruled that articles in the press about alcohol should carry the same health warnings as advertisements. The ruling follows the publication of an article about champagne in a Paris daily, Le Parisien. In spite of the paper arguing that the article was strictly editorial and therefore had nothing to do with advertising, the court maintained that the piece should have carried the mandatory health warning of the dangers of alcohol abuse. The paper must pay €5,000 (£3,733) in damages.