"With this budget, we are putting the entire population in danger": François Bayrou is waving the Social Security deficit to save money at the expense of the sick
The social security deficit, which François Bayrou is using to justify his austerity plan, is the direct result of the employer contribution cuts sought by Emmanuel Macron. Yet there is no shortage of solutions to redress the situation without causing a health crisis and to better care for the French.
Is Catherine Vautrin living in a parallel reality? When she spoke on Tuesday, July 15, during François Bayrou 's presentation of his ultra-austerity budget for 2026, the Minister of Labor and Health did not blink when she stated that in France, when it comes to healthcare, "the notion of: it's free, I have the right to it, is deadly."
You'd have to have never looked at a pay slip to realize that every month, the French contribute to funding the healthcare system, or never walked into a pharmacy to engage in such a rhetorical twist. And if that were all there was to it.
To justify his roadmap and the "efforts" demanded of the French, the Prime Minister argued that it was imperative to tackle the expenditure on the health branch of Social Security. "We must also be aware that if we do nothing, the automatic drift will lead us to imbalances that we cannot bear," he declared.
According to its calculations, these expenses are expected to increase by 10 billion euros next year, with its goal being to limit this increase to 5 billion. The government has therefore decided to cut.
Since these announcements, Barbara Filhol, nurse...
L'Humanité
