Health. Several thousand protesters against the regulation of doctors' establishments

(Future) doctors are angry. Several thousand protesters , mainly medical students, marched Tuesday afternoon in Paris and Lyon against the Garot bill, which aims to regulate the establishment of new doctors to counter the medical desertification.

"Remove the garot, private medicine is suffocating," proclaimed a banner in Paris from the FMF private doctors' union, whose leaders participated in the demonstration, as did those of other private doctors' unions.

"Vocation is not submission," "Our life is already a sketch, no need to make it a gag," "Suicidal doctors, patients in the cemetery," read the placards held up by the protesters, most of whom were wearing white coats.

According to Lucas Poittevin, president of the National Association of Medical Students, which co-organized the demonstration, "at least 5,000 people" were present. The students turned out in large numbers because "they are the ones who will be affected by the measures" in the Garot bill, he said.

In Lyon, several hundred students gathered in front of the Lyon East medical school to take over the Regional Health Agency.

Amin Benkraiem, 22, a fifth ^- year medical student representing the faculty's students, denounces a proposed law that is based on a "false premise." He comes from Nantua in the Ain department, which "is among the 3% of towns in France with the lowest number of doctors." "Every year, tens, hundreds, thousands of young doctors set up in medical deserts. It's simply a problem of numbers; not enough of them arrive," he says.

The bill initiated by Guillaume Garot (PS), supported by a cross-party group of MPs, provides in particular that in areas with the highest medical density, practitioners will have to wait for a colleague to retire before being able to set up practice.

Private practice doctors oppose this "coercion," which they say risks further discouraging young doctors from setting up private practice. The article in the Garot bill imposing this regulation was passed by 155 votes to 85 in the National Assembly on April 3, but the examination of the text is not complete and will resume next week.

The government, hostile to the Garot project, lit a counter-fire on Friday, by presenting as an alternative to the "end of freedom of establishment" a plan to combat medical deserts .

The flagship measure put forward by Prime Minister François Bayrou , imposing up to two days per month of consultation time for doctors in priority areas of the country, has also angered some practitioners.