How would joint ID and health card plan work for foreigners in France?

A scheme to combine the French healthcare carte Vitale with a user’s ID card is to be made “a priority” in order to fight healthcare fraud, Prime Minister Gabriel Attal has stated. However, how this would work for foreign residents (who do not have an ID card) has not been clarified.

The plan to merge the ID card with the carte Vitale was announced as part of a wider crackdown on social security fraud which cost France more than €2billion in 2023.

The government has set a target to cut social security fraud by €5.5billion by 2027, with €2.4billion of savings in healthcare alone.

Mr Attal suggests that combining the ID card with the carte Vitale could contribute to these savings.

Foreigners targeted

“There are people who come to France for medical care using someone else’s carte Vitale,” said Mr Attal at the press conference on March 20. “These individuals abuse our national solidarity while having no rights to public health insurance.”

An individual’s social security number does not appear on their ID card but is instead on their carte Vitale. While doctors can in theory request to see both, they do not do this systematically.

As a result, it is possible for unscrupulous individuals to use someone else’s carte Vitale - an accusation often levelled against illegal immigrants to France.

However, the new plans to combine the cards do not include any provisions for the millions of foreigners - EU and non-EU - who hold cartes Vitales legitimately.

At present they would be penalised by the measure, which Mr Attal says is aimed at “simplification”.

No date has been set for a decision as to whether the cards will be combined. Neither the health ministry nor the social security system (CNAM) could answer questions from The Connexion concerning the plans.

Healthcare opposition

However, the French healthcare system l’Assurance maladie has already expressed its scepticism.

“Combining the cards does not meet any real need of ours,” wrote the head of the Assurance maladie’s national director Thomas Fatôme in an open email to the government.

Mr Fatôme goes on to argue that the combination of the ID card with the carte Vitale would complicate the Assurance maladie’s projects to modernise the system.

In particular, such a change would mean that its new app, which allows users to carry an electronic version of the carte Vitale, would be obsolete even before its scheduled national release later this year.

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