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Following the repeal of a discriminatory decree, people infected with HIV, the virus responsible for AIDS, are now admitted to the ranks of the police.
This is great news for all HIV-positive people. On November 25, 2022, the government put an end to “Sigycop”, a device which prevented them from applying for a post in the police.
A victory for LGBT associations
This decision, taken by the Ministry of the Interior, is the culmination of a long fight for the LGBT movement.
“Victory for LGBT associations: people living with HIV will now be able to serve in the national police, without discrimination related to their state of health“, declared Maître Etienne Deshoulières in a press release, he who had brought before the Council of State an appeal on behalf of seven organizations.
The end of the Sigypop (a device for determining the “medical fitness to serve” of candidates) therefore marks the beginning of a new era for people living with HIV.
This assessment ranked “as unfit persons living with HIV, who were therefore excluded from the national police“, explains the lawyer.
HIV-positive people still excluded from certain professions
Whether “everyone understood that there was no risk in having an undetectable HIV-positive colleague“ underlines Johan Cavirot, president of FLAG (an association for the defense of LGBTQ + people), progress must still be made on the side of the gendarmes, firefighters and soldiers.
Indeed, this repeal does not currently concern either the gendarmes or the firefighters – even if it is possible that this development will influence the various regulations.
On the military side, no change is planned – the Ministry of the Armed Forces refused in April to modify the Sigycop system.
The army decree indeed indicates that any contagious virus “constitutes a medical cause of incapacity“, as long as the candidate is not completely cured.
Selection criteria that are more common than you think, according to Dr. Puissacq, occupational physician.
“Some professions are conditioned by skills. This is particularly the case in the nuclear and hospital sectors… For all these professions, the occupational doctor can issue an unfavorable opinion so as not to hinder or degrade the health of the worker. “The army is particularly drastic about its selections. It wants to limit the risk of transmission within combat zones, during close contact… Even the weight and heart defects of future soldiers are taken into account.”