"Period poverty is harmful to health": French company calls on government to reimburse reusable sanitary protection, as agreed

The government made a promise in 2023: it committed to reimbursing reusable sanitary protection for young people under 26. Two years later, the decree has still not been published. This Tuesday, August 5, a company specializing in menstrual panties is calling on François Bayrou to honor its commitments.

In a letter addressed to the Prime Minister and consulted by France Inter, the Elia company explains: " To postpone the implementation of this reform again, under the pretext of budgetary constraints, despite its very limited cost, would be to renounce prioritizing."

"Period poverty is detrimental to the health and social integration of young women. It's a subject that has long been ignored by our social system and we're finally managing to bring it to the forefront (...) Giving up on it today would amount to breaking a symbolic commitment to justice and dignity," explains Marion Goilav, one of the company's co-founders, to France Inter.

In May 2025, the government committed to making effective "before the end of the year" the reimbursement of reusable sanitary protection for women under 26 and those in the most vulnerable situations, a measure adopted at the end of 2023 but not yet implemented. "There is a delay and this delay is not acceptable," acknowledged the Minister for Equality between Women and Men, Aurore Bergé, questioned on this subject in the National Assembly by the Socialist Party MP Céline Thiébault-Martinez.

The 2024 Social Security budget, adopted at the end of 2023, provided for the reimbursement of reusable menstrual protection (panties and cups) for insured persons under 26 , as well as for beneficiaries of the complementary health solidarity (C2S) without age limit.

One in three women already face period poverty in France

"One in three women" has already been confronted with "menstrual insecurity", with a cost for society: " School absenteeism, absenteeism from work, girls giving up sports, in other words house arrest". In France, four million women lack menstrual protection , indicates the ministry's website on the occasion of World Menstrual Hygiene Day, celebrated every May 28.