Europe 1 with AFP
modified to
8:28 p.m., December 09, 2022
Free condoms in pharmacies will be extended to minors, said Emmanuel Macron on Friday, who admitted having been criticized for having limited this measure the day before to 18-25 year olds from January. “Banco, we’re going to do it!” Said the head of state in a tweet and a video posted on social networks. Emmanuel Macron was surprised by announcing this measure on Thursday during a session of the National Council for Refoundation (CNR) devoted to the health of young people, in Fontaine-le-Comte (Vienne). “In pharmacies, condoms will be free for 18-25 year olds. This will start on January 1. It’s a small prevention revolution,” he said.
Protect minors
After this announcement, “I was taken to task by several of you on the fact that many of our young minors had sexual relations and that they also had to be able to protect themselves, that they could have the same financial constraints,” he explains in the video.
“We are going to make the teams work to be able to extend this measure to minors (…) I think it is a very good prevention policy to allow all young people to protect themselves”, he adds, taking up the watchword “Get out covered”. If the terms of this support remain to be specified, the Minister of Health François Braun assured that the process would “be very simple: 100% reimbursement by Social Security”, “without prescription”.
Fight against all viruses
In the video, Emmanuel Macron also indicates that, beyond HIV, free screening will be extended “to other pathologies, other viruses, because it is also our prevention policy”. “We will continue to strengthen our policy of health prevention, regular diagnosis and screening at older ages, go further on vaccination against certain viruses. I am thinking of the papillomavirus”, he adds.
In recent years, the number of new diagnoses of HIV infection has not decreased in France, stagnating around 5,000 in 2021. In addition, according to Public Health France, 15% of people who discovered their HIV status in 2021 were aged under 25, and the share of this age group has not fallen since 2017.