Toulouse (AFP)
The founder of the SAMU, Professor Louis Lareng, died Sunday in Toulouse at the age of 96 years, announced in a commmuniqué the prefect of Haute-Garonne, Etienne Guyot.
In a tweet, Health Minister Agnès Buzyn praised "the memory" of this professor of medicine, "who had the audacity, in 1968, to create the Samu, which we know the major role in our health system Our emergency medicine owes him a lot, "said the minister.
Louis Lareng was born on April 8, 1923, in Ayzac-Ost, in the Hautes-Pyrénées, commune where he will be the mayor from 1965 to 1977.
Professor of medicine, he is at the origin of the creation of Samu, in Toulouse. A circular of February 1969 authorizes these services of urgent medical aid (SAMU), "service of general interest", coordinating the "private and public relief".
Seventeen years later, the "Lareng Law", which extends the Samu to all French departments with a unique and free number, on the 15th, is adopted unanimously.
Socialist deputy of Haute-Garonne from 1981 to 1986, Toulouse city councilor from 1983 to 1995, Louis Lareng was a "man of progress and innovation who" was interested early in telemedicine, "wrote in his release on Prefect of Haute-Garonne, Etienne Guyot, who paid tribute to "a great humanist".
Louis Lareng "was a committed politician, a humanist socialist and a Republican also invested in patriotic orders", greets on his side, in a statement, the mayor (LR) of Toulouse, Jean-Luc Moudenc.
"His voluntarism made Louis Lareng a remarkable personality, and I would like to salute his memory today, who was my godfather at the Legion of Honor," added the mayor, who recalls that Louis Lareng chaired Paul Sabatier University. from Toulouse from 1970 to 1976.
In 2016, Louis Lareng was promoted to the rank of Grand Officer in the Order of the Legion of Honor.
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