The new Minister of Solidarity, Catherine Vautrin, committed on Wednesday to the adoption “by the end of the year” of an old age law, but which might not be a programming law as initially planned. “There is a commitment” from the executive “on this famous old age law”, demanded for a long time by professionals in the sector, she declared during a hearing before the Senate Social Affairs Committee dedicated to to the proposed “aging well” law.
But “article 34 (of the Constitution, Editor’s note) does not provide at this stage for the capacity of a programming law for this type of activity,” she said. “There is therefore a referral to the Council of State which is in progress” and from which “I should have feedback within a month”. A programming law is carried out by the government and runs over several years, thus giving it a more ambitious character than a proposed law.
A law abandoned by the Castex government
Whatever the decision of the Council of State, Catherine Vautrin declared to the senators that she was “committed to making an old age law and that it be made and voted on by the end of the year”. This law, she specified, will cover “strategy, finances and governance.” Promised by the President of the Republic Emmanuel Macron at the start of his first five-year term, the old age law was abandoned by the Castex government in September 2021, due to lack of funding.
In November 2023, Elisabeth Borne, then Prime Minister, said she wanted this law to be presented by the summer of 2024 with adoption in the second half of 2024. The reshuffle at the beginning of January aroused concern among some of the stakeholders of the sector, who fear a further postponement.
“What matters is that we catch up with France”
“We are waiting for all the measures, guidelines and announcements made in recent months to be deployed as quickly as possible,” the president of Synerpa, the main union for private nursing homes, Jean-Christophe Amarantinis, told AFP on Tuesday. , warning against a “return to endless debates”.
For Pascal Champvert, president of the Association of Directors Serving the Elderly (AD-PA), the old age law is “more than necessary”. “Afterwards, if the State tells us that we can resolve the difficulties without a programming law, very good. But what is important is that we are catching up with the French delay” in caring for the elderly, said -he told AFP on Tuesday.