MP Frédéric Valletoux was cited in each reshuffle to take over the Health portfolio. It is now done.
Frédéric Valletoux joins a government for the first time. The deputy from the Horizons group, ally of the presidential majority in the Assembly, was named Thursday February 8 Minister Delegate in charge of Health and Prevention, in the super ministry of Catherine Vautrin. Finally the consecration for the one who was cited, reshuffle after reshuffle, as a serious candidate for the Health portfolio, without ever obtaining the said position.
Expected during the last three reshuffles
The latest disappointment dates back to the reshuffle of July 2023. While Emmanuel Macron and Elisabeth Borne were looking for a replacement for François Braun, the name of Frédéric Valletoux had started to be mentioned. But it was François Bayrou who then stood in the way of his nomination, anxious to maintain a balance within the government between his party, the MoDem, and that of Edouard Philippe, Horizons, to which Valletoux belongs. It was ultimately Aurélien Rousseau who inherited Health.
Frédéric Valletoux was already cited among the serious leads during the reshuffles of January 2023 and July 2022. He finally had to wait until February 8, 2024 to enter the executive. If he has been in the drawers for a long time, it is because his profile fits the Health portfolio. Unlike his predecessors, he never worked as a caregiver. But he was president of the French hospital federation from 2011 to 2022. Elected deputy in the last legislativehe is the author of a bill aimed at “improving access to care” in the territory, voted on in December in the Assembly.
He inherits negotiations with liberal doctors
Edouard Philippe’s man recovers several key files upon his arrival: the reform of the AME, promised to LR by Elisabeth Borne, but also the ongoing negotiations with liberal doctors. For the latter, the arrival of Valletoux at the Ministry of Health is not good news. “He never stopped denigrating liberal medicine and general practitioners, when he was at the head of the French Hospital Federation, making them responsible for all the ills of the healthcare system,” says Luc Duquesnel, spokesperson. general practitioners from the Confederation of French Medical Unions, in Les Echos.
Frédéric Valletoux notably said he was in favor of reinstating the on-call obligation for doctors, an avenue mentioned by Gabriel Attal in his general policy declaration of January 30.