The former Prime Minister had promised LR senators a project to reform the AME from the start of 2024. What will become of this commitment?
The senators had extracted this promise from Elisabeth Borne, the keystone of an agreement on the immigration bill. On December 18, on the eve of the final vote in Parliament on this very controversial text, the former Prime Minister committed herself, in a letter addressed to President LR of the Senate Gérard Larcher, to initiate a reform of State Medical Aid (AME), a system of access to care for foreigners in an irregular situation on French soil. Now that Borne has left the government, what about this reform?
“I have asked the ministers concerned to prepare regulatory or legislative developments which will enable a reform of the AME to be initiated,” wrote Elisabeth Borne to Gérard Larcher. “As you wished, parliamentarians will be fully involved in this work,” she added, specifying that “the necessary developments” should “be initiated at the start of 2024”. A commitment made at the insistence of the boss of LR senators, Bruno Retailleauwhich demanded a written promise before any agreement on the text of the immigration law in Parliament.
Will Gabriel Attal initiate the reform of the AME?
Did Elisabeth Borne suspect, when making this commitment, that she would no longer be at Matignon to follow through on it? The storm that followed the immigration law has finally convinced Emmanuel Macron to thank his Prime Minister, who left office on Tuesday January 9. His successor, Gabriel Attal, has not yet indicated his intentions regarding a reform of the AME. However, the former national Minister of Education was never one of the members of the government who criticized the immigration law. During the transfer of power, he said his intention to work to “master[er] better our immigration”, thus being in line with the policy pursued by Borne.
There is therefore no reason to think that Gabriel Attal will go back on the former head of government’s promise. The Republicans would have been quick to remind her of the commitment made by her predecessor. This had indicated that the reform would be carried out on the basis of recommendations assembled by former PS minister Claude Evin and former LR prefect Patrick Stefanini, in a report delivered at the beginning of December.
It remains to be seen whether the new Prime Minister will make this reform of the AME a priority, now that no major piece of legislation immediately requires the support of LR parliamentarians.