The government finally wants to freeze State Medical Aid credits intended for undocumented immigrants

The government said on Tuesday it was in favor of freezing credits devoted to State Medical Aid (AME) intended for undocumented immigrants, a change of direction after having initially planned to increase them in the 2025 budget. The Minister of Budget Laurent Saint-Martin confirmed information from RMC according to which the government will table an amendment as part of Parliament’s examination of the 2025 budget so that AME expenditures no longer increase next year.

The draft budget presented last Thursday provided for an increase in AME credits of 8%, to 1.3 billion euros, compared to 1.2 in 2024, which had sparked protests among certain elected representatives of the National Rally, opposed to this increase. Questioned on BFMTV, Laurent Saint-Martin explained “that like all expenses we needed to know how to better control them”. While ensuring that the AME, “public health and humanity issue”, “would be preserved”.

A reform of the AME?

On several occasions, the new Minister of the Interior, Bruno Retailleau, has said that he wants to reform the AME and replace it with emergency medical aid with drastically reduced scope. During the early legislative campaign this summer, the RN indicated for its part that it wanted to replace it with “vital emergency aid”.

State medical aid allows the care of people in an irregular situation residing in France for more than three months, whose resources are low and do not qualify for coverage under the common law system. In 2024, the AME envelope planned by the State represented approximately 0.5% of the health expenditure planned by the Social Security budget (PLFSS). At the end of 2023, there were 466,000 AME beneficiaries.