USEFUL LINKS IN FRANCE: ADMINISTRATION

Ministry of Health

Ministère chargé la Santé 

Diagram of the ministry's organization, press campaign, news .The official weekly bulletin (BOH, Bulletin officiel hebdomadaire entitled "Solidarité-santé" or "Solidarity-Health") is now online. It contains all texts published in the Journal Officiel: laws, orders, decrees and decisions, as well as unpublished documents (memos, instructions...). The BOH's contents mainly concern social policy, health, national health insurance, information on populations, immigration, repatriation, and urban policy.

Ministry of Health - DREES (Directorate for Research, Analysis, Evaluation and Statistics)

Attached to the Ministry of health website, this internet space presents surveys, publications and statistical data produced by the Directorate of research, studies, evaluation and statistics ("Etudes et Résultats", "Documents de travail", reports and books, regional publications). It also provides access to the main sources of health and social data,  FINESS, as well as local data. It presents major investigations conducted by Drees, classified by themes. National Health Accounts and Social Security Accounts, the hospital system's budget,

Ministry of Social Affairs

Information about the ministry, updates, projects by subject, publications and statistical studies,

Ministry of Labor  

Information about the ministry, updates, projects by subject, publications and statistical studies, key figures on labor and employment.

GENERAL ADMINISTRATIONS

Commissariat Général à la Stratégie et à la Prospective - France Stratégie

The Commissariat général à la stratégie et à la prospective is an organisation working directly under the direction of the Prime Minister and its objective is to assist the government in defining and implementing its economic, social, environmental and cultural policies.
The site presents its work programme and all the publications are available for free.

French administration's portal (The) 

Portail de l'administration Française "Service-public.fr" 

The site contains:

  • two directories with listings of the French administration's public-service departments and the corresponding national websites,
  • the heading "Comment faire si..." (What do I do if..),. This guide to administrative procedures for citizens is an inter-ministerial system managed by the Documentation Française (official public publisher) and which is then validated by the concerned ministries. The user has access to  files containing Legifrance publications (legislative texts) and Cerfa forms (all government forms).
  • directions for procuring legislative texts (Legifrance) and official government reports (La Documentation Française),
  • online forms, notably tax forms,
  • a question-and-answer section.

French National Assembly 

Assemblée nationale

Updates, parliamentary calendar, session agendas, minutes, legislation approved...

Constitutional council 

Conseil constitutionnel

This council reviews all legislation to ensure its constitutionality.
The Constitution of 1958 (The Fifth Republic), rulings handed down by the council, missions, legislative procedure.

Economic, social and environmental council

Conseil Economique ,Social et environnemental.

Conseil d'Etat - Highest administrative juridiction and advisory body to the government in matters of legislation

The site contains full-text versions of the Conseil's rulings as well as information on its mission, history, on administrative and appellate courts, administrative courts worldwide, and procedural explanations for individuals about the justice system regulating the French administration.

Court of accounts

Cour des comptes

In addition to information on the courts and their regional counterparts, the user has access to all official reports and bulletins.

CMU Fund

Fonds Cmu

The Cmu fund offers a public complementary insurance on a voluntary basis to lower socioeconomic groups. Its site contains information on how to obtain the CMU. It also publishes on line its reports and statistics informations.

High Concil for Public Health

Haut conseil de la Santé Publique (HCSP)
The HSCP provides public authority with the expertise necessary for the management of risks to public health, as well as for deisgning and assessing policy and healthcare prevention and safety strategies. It evaluates also some of national health plans. It produces reports available on line.

Inspection générale des affaires sociales (IGAS) 

IGAS is the inter-ministerial audit and evaluation office for social and health, employment and labour policies.

Journal Officiel - official publication of laws, decrees, legal announcements

Summary of general texts from the daily and weekly issues of the Journal officiel.

National interministeriel road safety Observatory

OSNIR (Observatoire national interministériel de la Sécurité routière)

Senate

Sénat

Updates: pending legislation, short bulletins on sessions from the previous week, press communiqués, complete copies of works in progress at the Senate...

HEALTH ADMINISTRATION

Health agencies portal

This portal is designed to enhance the agencies sites public health information. It covers both safety and health educational documentary informations.

Ansm - French National Agency for Medicines and Health Products Safety

Ansm (Agence nationale de sécurité du Médicament et  des Produits de santé)

This site contains several pages on the agency's organization, role, and mission (health law enforcement, ensuring proper use of drugs, development of industrial activity and research). In addition, there is information on its work plan.  Available also are updates and current developments (health alerts, withdrawal of suspect or contaminated batches of drugs from the market, pharmaceutical monitoring, press communiqués, letters to prescribers). The site also furnishes the following practical information:

  • forms: declaration forms for those experiencing undesirable side-effects, forms for manufacturers who wish to obtain marketing authorizations, certificates for publications of proper usage directions, World Health Organization certificates...
  • Agency publications: technical files, official medical practice guidelines (RMO, références médicales opposables), generic drug lists, reports by the Prescription Monitoring Bureau (Observatoire de la Prescription): antibiotics reports, anti-depressants.

ANSES - National agency responsible for food, environmental and occupational health safety

ANSES (Agence nationale de sécurité sanitaire, de l'alimentation, de l'environnement et du travail)
The new health establishment, was created in july 2010. It has incorporated the missions, resources and personnel of the previous French Food Safety Agency (AFSSA) and the previous French Agency for Environmental and Occupational Health Safety (AFSSET). 

EFS - French Blood Agency

EFS (Etablissement français du Sang)

HAs (French National Authority for Health)

HAs (Haute Autorité de santé) activities are diverse. They range from assessment of drugs, medical devices, and procedures to publication of guidelines to accreditation of healthcare organisations and certification of doctors. The site provides HAS publications in english.

Santé Publique France

Santé publique France was created on 27 April 2016 as the national public health agency, resulting from the merging of the French Institute for Public Health Surveillance (InVS), the French Institute for Health Promotion and Health Education (Inpes) and the Establishment for Public Health Emergency Preparedness and Response (Eprus).
Its role will to :
-  Analyze up-to-date knowledge and data on the determinants of health and risk factors.
-  Provide decision makers at all levels with independent evidence-based guidance and recommendations. It will be supported by expert committees.
-  Propose measures to health authorities to protect the population from health threats.
-  Develop evidence-based interventions for prevention and health promotion.
-  Contribute to preparedness and management of health crisis, and provide support for the implementation of response plans

ARS - Regional Health Agencies

List of ARS and how to contact them

The ARS consolidates into a single entity several bodies responsible for health policies in the regions and departments: regional and departmental health and social affairs directorates (DRASS and DDASS), regional agencies of hospitalization (ARH), regional public health groups (GRSP), regional Unions of the insurance funds (URCAM), regional missions of health (SRM) and pane hospital insurance, consisting of a part of the staff of the regional health insurance (CRAM) funds, of the social regime of independent (RSI), the agricultural social mutuality (MSA), regional branches of the medical service (DRSM).

ORS - Regional Health Observatories

Listings of ORSs and how to contact them

FNORS - National Federation of Regional Health Observatories

FNORS (Fédération Nationale des Observatoires Régionaux de la Santé)

This site includes numerical data from all 26 ORSs (2700 health indicators)
The database is organized into seven subject categories pertaining to health and social services: population and living conditions, health status, pathologies, health behaviour, health and the environment., health care resources and preventive health care.
The 2700 indicators are applied to continental France's 22 regions as well as its four overseas départements (local administrative levels). They are broken down by sex, age, and other characteristics and are often available for a span of several years. 

Social Security Organizations

ACOSS - Central Agency for Social Security Branches

ACOSS (Agence Centrale des Organismes de la Sécurité Sociale)

CADES (Caisse d'amortissement de la dette sociale)

CADES  has been assigned the task of amortizing France's social security debt by means of a financially balanced debt amortization fund that relies notably on fiscal resources. It is an institution which combines the guarantees provided by government-backed issuers (e.g. it cannot fail) with the organisation and transparency associated with traditional financial institutions.

Cnav - National Pension Fund

Cnav (Caisse Nationale d'Assurance Vieillesse)

Practical information on retirement pensions (calculations, entitlements...), statistics.

Pôle emploi

French governmental agency which registers unemployed people, helps them find jobs and provides them with financial aids. The agency was created in 2009, resulting from the merger between the ANPE and the UNEDIC.

Social security's portal

Social security's portal (Portail de la Sécurité sociale)

This site was set up to direct the reader to the various social security websites. It contains:
  • presentation of social security and its branches,
  • provision of information on the history of social security in France, health reforms, main figures, social security institutions, laws...,
  • directory of all social security organizations at the national level.

UCANSS - Union of National Social Security Funds

UCANSS (Union des caisses Nationales de Sécurité Sociale)

Information about the UCANSS presented in four sections:

  • General information on the UCANSS: introduction to the UCANSS and explanation of its mission. Observatory of trends in employment and professional qualifications (featuring an online directory of professions, prospective analyses trade by trade, developments in professional qualifications and requisites, job re-assignment and training programs...).
  • Services: employment offers, detailed statistics on social security personnel, texts and publications (catalogue of publications, branch agreements between social security and its personnel, social security by-laws and regulations, listing of illnesses and disorders associated with specific professions, the latest changes of the list of medical devices reimbursed by Social security, a listing which also includes their prices, reimbursement rates (TIPS, Tarif interministériel des prestations sanitaires), and a list of the various social security branches.
  • Activities: the UCANSS provides consultancy, training programs, and is a source of information (institutional network for professional training programs and offers by training organizations).
  • Key figures

General health insurance fund

Cnam- National Health Insurance Fund for Salaried Workers

Cnam (Caisse Nationale d'Assurance Maladie des Travailleurs Salariés)

Cnam - Occupational  Risks

Cnam - Risques professionnels

Other Social Insurance Funds

CARMF - Pension Fund for Physicians

CARMF (Caisse autonome de retraite des médecins français)

Information on physicians' retirement pensions. Access to other sites is also provided.

FNMF - National Federation of non profit complementary health insurance

FNMF (Fédération Nationale de la Mutualité Française)

The FNMF's site contains: an introduction to the Mutualité Française (key figures, specificities, values, organization, functioning, the federation, the Mutuality's history), a presentation of its members' activities (reimbursements, forecasts and solvency guarantees, the mutual's medico-social establishments), a directory of the mutual funds under the aegis of the Mutualité Française, a non-exhaustive glossary of frequently used terms within the Mutualité and by its information services, mutual fund publications (press communiqués, published works, and trade press.

MGEN (Mutuelle Générale de l'Education Nationale)

MGEN (Mutuelle Générale de l'Education Nationale)

MSA - National Health Insurance Fund for Agricultural Workers' and farmers

MSA (Mutualité Sociale Agricole)

Includes information on the farmers' health insurance fund.

RSI - National Health Insurance Fund for Self-Employed

(Régime Social des Indépendants)

OTHER

ATIH - Agency for Information on Hospital Care

ATIH (Agence Technique de l'Information sur l'Hospitalisation)

The Agency for Information on Hospital Care was set up in 2000 to manage the information systematically collected from all hospital admissions (PMSI) and used for hospital planning and financing.

Health - Pays de la Loire region

In addition to information, mission statements, and addresses for various actors in the Pays de la Loire's health system, this site provides health data from the region (ORS files, epidemiology of cancers and HIV) and information on various regional health programs.

Armed Forces Health Services

The site contains the following information on the armed forces health services: missions, organization (hospitals, medical schools, research centers, supply centers), health careers in the armed forces (statistics and a breakdown of professions), means (research, training, hospitals, and supply) some background history (results of entry/qualifying exams and extracts from the armed forces health service periodical "Actu Santé").