Arriving in the capital the day before, Geneviève Darrieussecq had a busy schedule for her first day in her new role as Minister of Health and Access to Care in the Barnier government. At 68, the now former MP for Landes is adding a new line to her ministerial CV after a stint as Secretary of State (then Minister Delegate) for Veterans and Remembrance, and Minister Delegate for Disabled People.
This Monday, September 23, she participated in a first morning meeting at Matignon, where the Prime Minister gathered his new team. “Not everyone knew each other. It’s an important way to meet,” she said.
“I won’t perform miracles”
The day continued at the Ministry of Health, where she succeeds Catherine Vautrin (also a member of the Barnier government, now Minister for Partnership with the Territories and Decentralization) and Frédéric Valletoux. “It’s emotional,” admits the one who measures “the work to be done and the challenges.”
During her speech on the occasion of the transfer of power, Geneviève Darrieussecq was able to cite “the major axes” of her future policy, which are access to care and prevention. “I will not perform miracles, I am not a fairy,” she said about the 2025 Social Security budget that she will have to prepare very quickly in view of its examination in Parliament. She continued: “The envelopes will increase a little, but never to the level that everyone would hope for.”
The Minister of Health upon her arrival at Matignon.
AFP
Laying out the milestones of her action, she warned that “access to care” must be “an integral part of regional planning” and that the health system must “certainly be broken down”.
Then, direction the Élysée, for the first Council of Ministers of the new government. Between two meetings outside the presidential palace, the new minister explains that it was “quick”. Far from being over, this day continued with a priority, that of putting together her team, and “in particular finding a chief of staff. This is what I will be working on over the next few hours. We are already working on it, but we are still waiting for the official nomination before launching”, underlines the Landaise, adding “to be lucky to have been in ministries” and “to be able to call people” that she knows.
Hot issues
This Monday late afternoon, before other working meetings, the Minister of Health had not planned her first official outing in the field. “We will see that in the next few hours.”
There is no shortage of files found on her new desk, such as the continuation of “the delegation of medical tasks to paramedical professionals, initiated by previous ministers, a subject of recurring friction between the different professions”. One of her wishes is also to respond to the “demographic challenge”. While the population is aging, “we are not a country sufficiently in prevention”, she said.
As for the Landes, she retains strong ties there. “I hope to find a few parentheses to return there at the end of the week,” she says. “I have my husband, my family, my friends there, it contributes to personal balance.” A way certainly also for the new minister to follow health issues in the department as closely as possible. And there is no shortage of them, like the tensions at the Dax hospital, or questions related to mental health.
