A petition against the healthcare changes, which from April 2008 will deny access to the French healthcare system to non-active new residents and existing early retirees who have not been in France for five years, has been placed at Number 10 Downing Street.
The petition is against the retrospective application of CMU denial and has been placed by a group of Britons from the west of France. The petition, which closes on December 10, had attracted 1,222 signatures as of November 5.
Brian Shatwell, of the non-profit making organisation Charente Limousine Exchange, created the petition on behalf of his group, which organises events and language lessons for English-speakers. He said: “Many of our members are affected, including our secretary, who has been diagnosed with cancer. She received a letter from her CPAM saying she would be covered 100% for treatment for her condition – and she is booked in for an operation. Then soon afterwards, she received another one saying she would be out of the CMU by the end of March. She is worried about how to pay for the follow-up treatment she will need. People in our area are all starting to receive these letters referring to the end of March.”
“We had to get at least 250 signatures for the British government to respond, which we have done easily – we have a respectable number, but it would be great to have another 30 times more so the government really has to sit up and take notice.”
The petition can be found at: http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/healthinFrance. Anyone can sign up and add their name online.
Although Mr Shatwell is 62 and has lived in France only since 2005, he is able to benefit from French healthcare through his wife’s entitlement to the E121 (for state pensioners).
Connexion Editor Sarah Smith said: “This is something which people feel very strongly about. We have received a large volume of concerned enquiries from readers about the changes – and more and more are coming in. The overriding feeling is that it is unfair that people moved to France under one set of rules – having checked out those rules and made sure they could live by them - and then the rules changed.”
The petition has the support – and signature – of British Euro MP Mary Honeyball who has made a declaration statement of opposition to the changes to the European Parliament. All Euro MPs have until mid-January to vote on the declaration. Readers can contact their local MEP in France to see if they are backing her and, if not, to ask why not. Please forward any replies you receive to Connexion at contact@connexionfrance.com
Mary Honeyball MEP, who is a Labour Party member, has been supported in the declaration by Irishman Proinsias De Rossa and British Liberal Democrat Bill Newton Dunn. The declaration stresses that applying the changes retrospectively to people already in the CMU seems especially unjust.
The UK national press has also written about this issue of retrospective application – including an article in the Sunday Telegraph on November 4.
Ms Honeyball needs to get half of the (almost 800) MEPs to vote in her favour if the declaration is to be supported by the parliament. She told Connexion that 25 very quickly signed up. To date only one French MEP has signed up - and she is from the Caribbean Island of Martinique – a French overseas department. The other MEPs have until mid-January to make their minds up.
The Connexion has emailed all the French MEPs to ask their views. So far only one, Henri Weber, has responded. Mr Weber, a socialist from the north-west France European constituency (Normandy, Nord-Pas de Calais and Picardy) told us he plans to give his support. The other regions include west (Brittany, Pays de la Loire and Poitou-Charentes), east (Alsace, Burgundy, Champagne-Ardenne, Franche-Comté, Lorraine), south-west (Aquitaine, Languedoc-Roussillon, Midi-Pyrénées), the south-east (Corsica, Provence-Alpes-Côte-d’Azur, Rhône-Alpes), the Massif Central (Auvergne, Centre, Limousin) and Ile de France.
You can find contact details for Euro MPs here:
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/members.do?language=EN
If you want to email them, we suggest you try: firstname.surname@europarl.europa.eu as well as initialsurname@europarl.eu.int
If you wish to register your opposition to the changes with them and are not confident in French, here is a suggested template letter:
Monsieur [Madame]
En tant que résident [e – for women] britannique [change if you are not British] dans votre circonscription européenne, je vous écris pour savoir si vous êtes au courant de la déclaration déposée au parlement européen le 10 Octobre par les députés européens Mary Honeyball, Proinsias De Rossa et Bill Newton Dunn au sujet des changements qui ont eu lieu récemment en ce qui concerne le droit donné aux étrangers en France d’appartenir (pour la plupart d’entre eux en cotisant, selon leurs revenus) à la Couverture Maladie Universelle.
Selon ces députés, la décision prise par le gouvernement français, de demander à tous les étrangers inactifs en France (par exemple, ceux qui ont pris la retraite avant la soixantaine) de sortir du système d’assurance santé d’état et de trouver une assurance privée, est injuste, surtout appliquée d’une façon rétrospective. Le gouvernement a décidé de refuser l’accès à la CMU aux nouveaux venus, mais aussi à ceux qui ont cotisé pendant des années (ces derniers ont jusqu’à la fin mars 2008).
Ceux qui sont atteints de maladies graves – par exemple, qui sont en cours de traitement pour le cancer - sont très inquiets parce que les compagnies d’assurance n’assurent pas les personnes avec de graves maladies préexistantes.
Pour les autres, la décision du gouvernement leur parait discriminatoire et les laisse dans une situation précaire. Un certain nombre n’aura pas le choix et devra sans aucun doute retourner en angleterre ou plus rien ne les attend.
Nous aimerions savoir si vous avez l’intention de soutenir la déclaration, et sinon, peut-être pourriez-vous nous indiquer pourquoi ?
Je vous prie d’agréer, l’expression de mes sentiments les meilleurs,
[name]
This translates as:
Sir [Madam]
As a British resident in your European constituency, I am writing to find out if you are aware of the declaration which was submitted to the European Parliament on October 10 by the Euro MPs Mary Honeyball, Proinsias De Rossa and Bill Newton Dunn, relating to the changes which came in recently concerning the right of foreign people in France to belong (in most cases, by paying a subscription based on their income) to the Couverture Maladie Universelle.
According to these Euro MPs, the French government’s decision to tell all “inactive” foreigners (for example, those who have retired to France before their 60s) to leave the state healthcare system and find private insurance, is unjust, especially applied retrospectively. The government has decided to refuse access to the CMU to newcomers to France but also to those who have paid into it for years (who have until the end of March to find other arrangements).
Those suffering from serious illnesses – for example, those being treated for cancer - are very worried because insurance companies are not interested in taking on people with serious existing conditions.
For others, they feel the government’s decision is discriminatory and it leaves them in precarious situation. Some of them will have no choice but to return to the UK, where most no longer have a home.
We would like to know if you intend to support the declaration, and if not, perhaps you would like to tell us why?
Yours faithfully,
