Lucie de Perthuis, edited by Alexandre Dalifard / Photo credit: DAVID MAREUIL / ANADOLU AGENCY / ANADOLU AGENCY VIA AFP 20:06 p.m., April 20, 2023

According to the study carried out by the Association of Rural Mayors of France, a child born in a rural area will have a shorter life expectancy than if he had been born in the city. In this study, the association also notes an average excess mortality of more than 14,000 deaths each year in the countryside.

This is a profound injustice linked to the health system: the French live longer in the city than in the countryside, and the gap is widening. According to a study by the Association of Rural Mayors of France (AMRF), a child born in a rural area has a shorter life expectancy than if he or she had been born in a city. The study also shows an average excess mortality of more than 14,000 deaths each year in the countryside.

"No country medicine"

For Michel Fournier, president of the AMRF, this is mainly due to the difficulty of accessing care. "There may be a city doctor, but there is no country medicine," he told Europe 1. According to him, the explanation is very simple. "A whole set of professionals have retired and they have not been replaced because we have turned off the tap. With the numerus clausus, we simply pay what was decided twenty or thirty years ago, "laments Michel Fournier.

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The president of the AMRF nevertheless specifies that he proposed, at the end of the course, to encourage and ensure that there is a mandatory passage in territories in difficulty. "It is not necessarily followed and yet it would have made it clear that finally, we could very well find our way around. There is also culture in the rural environment and different advantages. You have to live it at some point to understand it and say 'why not'," he concludes. Countryside or city, so you will have to make a choice.