French doctor strike will intensify, warns union
GP activity nationwide was down 19% last week according to electronic healthcare data
Calls for strike action to continue have been made following a major protest in Paris on January 10 (pictured)
Said Anas / Alamy Stock Photo
An ongoing 10-day doctor’s strike in France is set to intensify, a union leader warned over the weekend, with one group calling for continued and unlimited action.
“The movement will intensify [from Saturday, January 10]... the past week is just the beginning,” said president of the syndicat des jeunes médecins (union of young doctors) Anna Boctor to FranceInfo.
Around 20,000 doctors and other healthcare professionals protested in Paris over the weekend as part of a coordinated demonstration. Further protests include an ‘exile to Brussels’ that will see thousands of doctors head to the Belgian capital.
The young doctor union is one of seven major groups backing the current 10-day strike of private doctors (médecins libéraux) in France. They are protesting over the 2026 social security budget alongside several recent health measures and accuse the government of taking an ‘authoritarian’ position.
The strike, running from January 5 - 15, has seen groups progressively join the action, with maximum disruption predicted for this week.
This is expected to continue in the days after, with cancelled appointments needing to be rearranged and an influx of people attempting to make appointments.
Last week, GP activity nationwide was down 19%, with specialist activity down around 12%, according to the volume of electronic health data submitted.
The lack of available appointments led to an increased strain on public hospitals and healthcare staff – not taking part in the strike – at a time of increased patient numbers due to a rise in flu cases and weather-related accidents.
You can read our article here on how to find healthcare during the strike.
Will strike action continue?
The young doctors’ union has called for a ‘renewable’ strike motion to be in place after January 15, which means there will be no specific end date.
It allows those included in the motion to walk out as they wish across the period. It is worth noting that private doctors do not need to give advance notice of their intention to strike unlike certain other professions (although healthcare staff can be requisitioned in times of shortage).
However, as of January 12 none of the other six unions taking part in the current action have reinforced the call.
Anger in the sector remains high, however, and the issues causing the strike are highly unlikely to be resolved in the coming days.
“If we want this healthcare system to last and be as efficient as possible, we must work together between Assurance Maladie and healthcare providers,” said Mrs Boctor.
There has been “a historic breakdown in social dialogue between government bodies and those of us who are on the ground providing healthcare,” she added.
“The head of Assurance Maladie [Thomas Fatôme, in place since July 2020] is a technocratic civil servant to the extreme… as long as he's at the head of our national health insurance system, we can't move in the right direction.
"We don't work together, we're in step, we're forced to obey orders… [we want] a return to genuine social dialogue,” Mrs Boctor added.
On Friday, union leaders refused an invitation to meet with the Health Ministry and are instead seeking a meeting with embattled Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu this week.
“We have a responsibility to move forward together,” said Health Minister Stéphanie Rist.
“There are ways to move forward, but I want to do it with the professionals… there comes a time when everyone must take responsibility,” she added.
The minister said she is willing to open debate around certain measures included in the social security budget, which Mrs Rist said “have been somewhat distorted because the political debate has been complicated.”
What do doctors want?
The main demand from unions is the ‘re-opening of social dialogue’ between authorities and unions, which they say has been gradually eroded and led to several measures in the budget being added without consultation.
In this context, social dialogue means government health authorities (including the Health Minister and the head of Assurance Maladie) meeting with union leaders to discuss any potential changes to fees or care, to ensure all sides agree on the way forward.
Doctors cite the budget’s ability to allow Assurance Maladie to unilaterally set certain fees without consultation as a prime example, alongside new restrictions on the duration of sick-leave notes.
Outside of the text itself, doctors point towards other measures, including:
Proposed prescription reduction targets for professionals who ‘over-prescribe’ medicine, which is going through parliamentary debate.
Restrictions on where new doctor surgeries can be set up in a bid to tackle France’s medical deserts
Previous action in the sector last autumn saw proposals such as a surcharge on suppléments d'honoraires and obligations for doctors to consult and complete online patient medical records removed from the budget and other potential laws.
