France admits more foreign doctors than ever before, but inequalities remain

Nearly 4,000 doctors with qualifications from outside the European Union passed France's medical licensing exam last year, according to the Health Ministry. While this marks an increase from the previous year, foreign doctors have voiced frustration over restrictive quotas and unequal treatment within the French healthcare system.

More than 3,800 doctors with degrees from outside the European Union passed the mandatory exam to practice in France, the EVC, in 2024, the French Ministry of Health said Thursday in a statement.

Foreign doctors
Nearly 50 percent more passed the main exam in 2024 than the year before, and those accepted will fill 4,000 open positions to join the French medical system, which is facing a shortage of healthcare practitioners.

But the nearly 5,000 foreign doctors currently working in France have been speaking out about the inequality of their situation: they earn three to four times less than French doctors, and they have no guarantee to be able to stay in France, as they have renewable six-month contracts.

According to France Inter, a group of these doctors wrote a letter to French President Emmanuel Macron, the Prime Minister and Health Minister, alerting them about the situation.

“It is urgent to reform the status of Padhue,” the doctors wrote, using the French acronym for doctors with diplomas from non-EU countries.

They call for “an end to examinations with questionable quotas, which only perpetuate injustices to the detriment of quality of care”.

In the ministry's statement, Health Minister Yannick Neuder said he would seek to “simplify the procedure” for the 2025 EVC, to “to allow for the increase of the number of practitioners we can welcome into our establishments, to strengthen the health of all French people".

(with AFP)